What If They Gave an Event and Nobody Came?

 
First of all, I’d like to apologize for not posting on Friday. It has been a rather hectic time. What I didn’t tell you was that two weeks ago, Dan not only was hospitalized but also had had a car accident. Late Sunday afternoon, his doctor had advised him to go to the emergency ward so he could be treated for an infection and a spiking fever. Dan decided it was best to get there as soon as possible, but as he was turning into the hospital had an accident. I’m pretty sure his judgment was impaired by the fever. Fortunately, he was not injured by the accident nor were the people in the other car. Unfortunately, his car suffered a crushed front end damage and a bit of the car's frame was bent. It was declared “totaled” by the insurance company.
 
I spent Thursday morning working at the church, Thursday evening at the Author’s Showcase, and a good chunk of Friday helping Dan get a new car.
 
Although my schedule is to blog three times a week, you can see how life intervened in a such a way that it caused me to declare, “I give!” In short, I gave myself a break.
 
Now, regarding the title of this post.
 
I am riffing on an old slogan from the 1960s: “What If They Gave a War and Nobody Came.” The slogan was adapted and borrowed from words written by poet Carl Sandberg. During the Vietnam era, that slogan was on posters everywhere. In fact, posters were everywhere, period. They were the memes of the 1960s.
 
All of which brings me to the Author’s Showcase.

I was psyched to go. I had my reading practiced and was raring to do it. I actually had pared it down some from the piece printed in a previous blog. Then I put together a collection of my books, loaded them into the car, and off Dan and I went to Peddler’s Village.
 
Once there, I had the pleasure of meeting fellow authors Carter Bowman and John Markowski. Carter writes novels that are a cross of suspense, horror, and paranormal. John has written a non-fiction book that is a part-gardening and part-memoir. These are great, smart, and talented guys. And we wonderful conversations as we talked “shop.”
 
You can and should check out their work, and here are the places you can do just that.
 
Carter’s website

                                                                            Carter's books:
​

John Markowski has an awesome blog called the Obsessive Neurotic Gardener. According to him it has been “Kicking Ass and Taking Names Since 2010." Ya gotta love that attitude.

                                                                             John's book:

​“But, why,” you’re no doubt asking, “is your blog title about no one coming to an event?”
 
Well, gentle readers, despite the fact that Nathan, the guy who had made all the arrangements, did a fantastic job of advertising the Author Showcase, had put out an array of yummy snacks and beverages (including wine), and had gone through the trouble of setting up chairs, a podium, and a signing table with name tags for our books, maybe four people wandered into the store. At the very end of our scheduled time, a couple finally came in and engaged us in conversation but were not prepared to buy books.
 
I would have been crushed at the lack of turnout, had I not had such a good time with John, Carter, and Nathan, as well as the young woman who was at the cash register (I’m sorry, I forgot her name, my apologies!).
 
So, what looked like a “lemon” sort of situation actually made some pretty tasty lemonade. Carter convinced me to put out an audio book, gave me the name of the audio company related to Audible, and told me he’d help walk me through the process. We encouraged John to keep writing and told him how we loved the idea behind his book (which we did, no joke). And we all agreed that, while social media is something we all must do, it is crucial to get ourselves out in public with our work. It became a sort of ad hoc one-night-only writers’ group.
 
I got in on the post-mortem among Nathan, John, and Carter rather late, but I don’t regret it, as I had been chatting with one part of the late-comer customer couple about poetry (she loves to write and is trying to work up the courage to publish). Meanwhile, Dan and her husband were talking about politics. Even though this is a dicey topic these days, no blood was spilled during their conversation. Thank God for that.
 
By the time I arrived at the snack table, I learned that the gist of the post mortem, hashed out over snacks and wine, was to try something at another day and time. We made Nathan swear he would let us in on it. He’d better make good on that promise, because we know where he works and we are relentless.
 
So… to answer my question, what if they gave an event and no one came?
 
They had a cocktail party.
 
Which only goes to show, everything is cool as long as you have a glass of wine and good conversation.
 
 
Later, gators!