Aw look, they love my agent as much as I do. *sniff*
Yesterday was quite the eventful day – my inaugural SCBWI event on building an online presence was at 2, which of course meant I went into a bit of a panic when my daughter started violently throwing up at 10. I mean, holy cow, it was terrible. But superheroic dad that I am, I did my part to get her comfortable and taken care of, frantically polished off the rest of the Saturday morning errands, and managed to arrive at the event venue with my composure intact and no discernible smell of vomit in the air. Victory!
In the end it was a great event, and while my (possibly overambitious) plans didn’t all come to fruition, enough of them panned out to keep me from sliding into a state of despair, and the members of the unexpectedly large crowd were patient and enthusiastic participants throughout. And of course I got the very best in logistical support, facility booking, audience management and baked goods from my region’s ace squadron of SCBWI organizers, led by friend and generally awesome human being Keely Parrack.
Anyway, there’s all kinds of stuff I promised from this event, specifically in the form of video clips, so here they are, yo!
REMOTE HECKLING: AN INTRODUCTION
The issue of who’d handle the camera, when to cut, where to point the darned thing…err, yeah. Not planned, any of it. Which is why Jeannie Mobley’s remote heckling served as a kind of pilot video for the whole process. Here I am, suave and authoritative, dishing out vague and wobbly instructions for the madness to come, which was to have not-in-attendance hecklers send their derisive comments in and have a proxy heckler speak in their place. Yeah, I know – this is a very questionable idea.
REMOTE HECKLER #1: JEANNIE MOBLEY
The lovely and super-fun Lisa Schulman was READY to serve as Jeannie’s proxy heckler! I mean, yowza, Lisa was ALL IN. A command performance.
MY RESPONSE TO JEANNIE
REMOTE HECKLER #2: JIM HILL
Anne Nesbet came through with a bravura proxy heckling session despite the fact that she knows NOTHING about Dungeons & Dragons, which forms the basis for Jim’s obscure but potent heckle…
REMOTE HECKLER #3: AMY SPITZLEY
Edna Cabcabin Moran was actually the perfect choice for Amy’s proxy heckler…
WISH YOU WERE HERE
I freely confess that this is the clip where my planning broke down to the greatest degree – I wanted to acknowledge everyone who sent good wishes and pre-event congratulations via Facebook or this blog, but due to my hasty, overcaffeinated delivery of instructions and the overall rowdiness of the crowd (these children’s writers and illustrators, I swear, they like to paaaarty), probably half the names I planned on having read were left scattered around the room on assorted sheets of paper. Those of you who were left out, I’m sorry!!! You know my affection for you is a dashing, leaping, gazelle-like thing, right? RIGHT??? AAAAAGGGGHHHH
It's okay Arthur, we forgive you. 
LINKS TO SOME OF THE STUFF I SHOWED YESTERDAY
- Verla Kay’s Blueboards
- Lisa Yee’s 2009 Bodacious Book Contest winners
- Dystel & Goderich first lines contest
- Tara Lazar and I review NEIL ARMSTRONG IS MY UNCLE
- I howl at the moon
- Nan Marino gives me a special prize
- Tara Lazar and I review WHEN YOU REACH ME
- Betsy Bird gives my blog a shoutout!
- Kathleen Duey on Shrinking Violet Promotions
- The Maureen Johnson internet manifesto
- The Enchanted Inkpot
- Me and my editor at SCBWILA10 (scroll to the bottom)
- Me as a zombie
Thanks again to everyone who attended! The crowd is no less important than the speaker, at least when it comes to MY events, so y’all did it up right, and I’m grateful.
Reporting to you live from Upchuck City,
m.
Two years. You people will see this guy speaking at the LA conference in two years. MARK MY WORDS.
Aw geez, do you think so? That seems awfully soon – I could see myself maybe doing a breakout session then… (and thanks Lisha!)
Yay. It’s fun all over again!
It WAS fun, wasn’t it? I’m so glad we finally got to meet in real life, Becky!
Looks like a great workshop Mike. I’m sure there are a number budding social media superstars in the making in attendance.
Bravo to Anne Nesbet for the geekiest remote heckle. Yay, Anne!
I hope there are some budding superstars in that crowd, Jim, although it’s debatable how much of that could be credited to me. And thanks for taking part, I’ll see you in LA!
Ha, Jim! I figured D4 and D20 must be SOMETHING scary, because D is such a tough letter. And then I remembered my mother saying “the shower door is sticking again, someone get the WD-40,” and decided D4 and D20 must be both scary and . . . . chemical.
Mike put on a great show–he handles that little video camera with Awesome Acrobatic Aplomb.
Aw, thanks Anne! Especially for adding so much extra travel to what sounded like an already hectic day – I hope the soccer matches and afterparties and all that stuff went well!
Congratulations, Mike! You did a great job! Hope you know I was with you in spirit. Thanks for mentioning me in the “wish you were here” section. I’m so glad you showed them your howling at the moon, because who does that? Only you.
And the whole thing still makes me smile.
The howling story got a big response, Nan! I hope you get a few new fans out of it.
Yesterday was brilliant fun – and thanks so much for putting up all the info and links – great to see such a good turnout but seriously Mike, what did you expect? It’s Mike ‘Captain Stupendous’ Jung!
xo
Thanks so much for the invite and all your hard work, Keely! It was totally fun, and I’d love to do it again someday.
great stuff i watched all the videos.
Oh, yeah, Mike?! Oh yeah???
Well done, Lisa. And well done, Mike, and thanks for mentioning and allowing me to heckle you despite my absence.
Looks like a great time was had be all. Congratulations on a mostly successful event, and I hope the vomiting is over.
Thanks for the heckle, Jeannie! Lisa gave a tully committed performance – I mean, I was a little scared when she did that head-waggle thing at the end. Sadly, the vomiting (which didn’t happen at all yesterday) resurfaced an hour ago…
Great fun! This is the first time I’ve seen remote heckling in action. And it was a nice surprise to hear my name in the last video.
Thanks Medeia! Yeah, there was a mad shuffle of papers when we shot that final video, so it’s borderline miraculous that ANYONE’s name made it in…
I knew you’d rawk it, Mike. Congrats on an awesome speaking debut!
Thanks Cheri, we missed seeing you there!
It was great meeting you Mike. Thank you for your time on Saturday.
It was good to meet you too Jason, thanks for being there!
Fun! Fun! Fun! And I was there, too.
OH HA HA HA HA!!!! I was playing your clip and heard me and the girls and the girls were nearby and they made me hit replay 3 x’s!!!
The girls say they wish they’d been there too!!