Santa Barbara, again

After an absence of ten years, I've returned to the Santa Barbara Writers Conference this week to learn what's new in the publishing industry and to pitch an idea for a book that's been percolating in me for the last, oh, two years, ten months, don't know how many days. (You guessed it, it's a Katrina book.) Tomorrow I have three ten-minute interviews with three agents to pitch, yes, just like writers in Hollywood pitch screenplays for movies. I keep telling myself this is just to get my feet wet, as I've never done this before. Kind of like preaching those first sermons.

Santa Barbara, in case you didn't know, is one of the country's top writers' conferences. For the last 36 years, Ray Bradbury has been the keynote speaker. He was here Saturday night, opening the conference. He is 88 now and partially paralyzed from a stroke he had some years ago, and his speech is a little slurred. But he's still the master, and we gave him a standing ovation. His message, applicable to more than just writers: "Do what you love, and love what you do." Amen!

You may think this is a strange place for a minister to be, but this morning I was in a nonfiction workshop with about 20 participants, and three of us were pastors. We who preach, write. I love to tell people from my former profession, the magazine industry, "When you're the preacher, you can't tell the congregation, "The sermon's not quite done yet, but I'll get it to you tomorrow." The editors all laugh. There is no winging it on Sunday morning. Whether it's good or bad, the sermon's got to be done, and you get up there with a smile and preach it, even if you think it's a dog. One of my seminary professors told us in preaching class, "Sometimes you have to walk the dog." Yeah, but don't do it too often. But I digress.

This week many of my Presbyterian colleagues are at the denominational General Assembly in San Jose. If you're geographically challenged as far as California is concerned, San Jose is just south of San Francisco in the northern part of the state. Santa Barbara is 90 miles north of the Los Angeles airport in the southern part of the state. Thoroughly confused? Just remember, San Jose and Santa Barbara are probably close to 400 miles apart. Have fun at the General Assembly, friends.

I spent a little time reading the local Sunday paper yesterday, the Santa Barbara News-Press. I had been told that Santa Barbara is fairly conservative, and every column I read in the paper seemed to support that view. This afternoon as I walked across the grounds of my hotel -- it's actually a resort, Fess Parker's Doubletree Resort, just across the road from the ocean, and yes, I was tempted to sing the Davy Crockett theme song when I walked in the lobby but didn't -- at any rate, I noticed a couple of California Highway Patrol cars (wasn't there a TV show once called CHiPS about them? The patrol, not the cars) parked in the driveway by the lobby and some guys in black suits and dark sunglasses standing around -- yes, it really looked like Men in Black. Hmm, well, when you're only 90 miles from L.A. and you're at a resort, it's not unusual to get a celebrity or two in the area. This evening I asked someone if they knew who it was. I was told it was John McCain. This person seemed to think that he and his entourage probably had a block of about 100 rooms in the main part of the hotel. (I am staying in a building at the far end of the property. I am nowhere near the action. I actually find this comforting. If somebody starts shooting around here, I want to be as far away as possible.)

Well, conservative Santa Barbara would probably welcome John McCain. We in New Orleans aren't particularly happy with Republicans since Katrina, but that's a long story and I really, really don't want to write a political blog. My friend Ethel says if I get to meet McCain (not likely!), to tell him on behalf of her and all the other mothers of our service people that if he gets elected president, he should bring our children home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Me, I'm here to learn more about writing. So far I've learned that I need to keep this blog going and get more people to read it. If you are one of my three readers, please tell a friend about it. As the Gallo wine guys used to say, thank you for your support.