The Making of a Guest of Honor Pt. 1

I allowed the alarm clock to sleep in. It hummed in the darkness still hours away from its scheduled cry. I removed the blankets and sat up. A chill touched me as a green LED light blinked 5:30. It really was too early to be up, but my car waited only half-packed. Today mattered. It wasn’t a moving day, but it still felt like a big move up. In a few hours I would serve as Guest of Honor at a science fiction comic con for the first time. With that in mind, who needed sleep?

I stumbled to the kitchen and began to prepare breakfast. My eyes shocked at the sharp refrigerator light. My body disagreed with my brain about whether I should be up and my head felt a little hollow. Coffee couldn’t fix that. Instead, I relied on blackberries, raspberries, and a handful of nuts. The fructose helped. The splash of water did too.

The prep for being Guest of honor begins months before this morning. It often starts with an email inquiry. In my case, it started with an IM. A colleague I chatted with at Mars Con said I’d make a good fit for something happening in Roanoke. It was a science fiction con, but also a fundraiser for Autism. They work heavily with the Blue Ridge Autism and Achievement Center. That got me. I told him he could pass along my info.

I expected just a table. I didn’t expect to be offered Guest of Honor, but you don’t say “no.”

When they called to offer, I thought about what I could contribute. I could talk about my work with WAMU, VOR, my fantasy novels, and, of course, my time working with the Jim Henson gang. They seemed thrilled. I was too.

First thing I did after the phone call was to contact some of my Muppety friends at Sesame Street. I told them about the event and the cause and they volunteered to help. They contributed a box full of books, toys, and other goodies plus a prototype Julia doll! Julia is Sesame Street’s newest Muppet. She’s a character with autism that they introduced just this summer. I felt overwhelmed. Moreso, when I saw just how much stuff they wanted to give. The thing about my Muppety friends is that they are all dear. Not one of them is a jerk or diva. They are who they ought to be: kind, smart, sweet, and generous. If you hold a warm spot for Sesame Street or the Muppets know that their caretakers are wonderful people.

Goodies secured, the next thing I did was think about what was expected of me and what I could do as Guest of Honor to provide the congoers, cosplayers, and readers a good experience. I asked Dave Goelz, Charles DeLint, Catherynne Valente, and a couple of others in the entertainment and literary universe. The nutshell was be funny and remember it’s about the audience. Don’t be indulgent, think about stories they could tell that they would enjoy sharing. Also, don’t pretend to be something you’re not.

In the abstract, that’s great advice, but then you have to really dig. What parts of my life fit that? What would people want to hear about? My take on the writing craft? My successes? My most embarrassing tales? What about the struggles and failures? Do I talk about the time Amy Adams flirted with me at the presser for Night at the Museum II? How the mixing board caught fire on the opening night of my play’s New York premier?

Do I talk about how I met the Muppets because of being stilted by the Washington Redskins’ Darrell Green? Do I talk about how A Halo of Mushrooms was inspired by my assignments as a newsroom radio reporter? How about the first time I wrote Muppety scripts with Jim Lewis and Dave Goelz? Do I need a theme?

The theme idea was one I liked. As a writer, I’m much more of a pantser than a plotter, but giving a speech is much more like writing a short story than a novel. I’m much more likely to outline a short story because you have so little time to fit in all the elements and make sure everything works. Every brushstroke, every keystroke matters. A novel is different. You have more time in a novel to think and wander. Usually, you also have a lot more time to edit too.

The theme I chose was one given to me in my first interview with the Muppets. You see many of the original performers with the Muppets did not come from a performance background. Dave Goelz, before becoming Gonzo, was an industrial designer with Hewlett Packard and American Airlines. He said that the first season on set intimidated him. He fled when someone famous like Danny Kaye came in the room. He felt he didn’t deserve to be there. This impacted his work. It made Gonzo “downbeat” and a little depressed. One day, Frank Oz had had enough. He pulled Dave to the side and said, “Look! Your job is to be a fool. Just go for it.”

A light went off in my head. The job is to be a fool. When writing fantasy novels, comedy, or even reporting the job is to go full throttle. It’s not to write the piece that everyone has already read. It’s not to craft a cookie cutter reiteration of a Star Wars space opera, a James Bond thriller, a Police buddy story, or even a Romantic comedy. It’s to make something new. It’s to risk ridicule. It’s to bare the slings and arrows of outrageous Goodreads reviewers and in doing so create a work that hopefully has a resonance that lasts beyond the last written word on the stories final page.

My first duty as guest of honor was to be a fool.

(to be continued)