I first met Molly O'Keefe at the Emerald City Writers Conference in Seattle. I can't remember the exact sequence of events. We might have met earlier in the day. Or not. All I know is that at dinner (which was one of those buffet style things), this very charming and pretty and pregnant woman sat down next to me. She had a tiny little plate with maybe a carrot on it. As we sat there, I couldn't help noticing that she was eyeing my potatoes.
By eyeing, I mean she couldn't focus on anything else and could barely speak because of the drool dripping out of the side of her mouth.
I asked if she'd like them. To make a long story short, after demurring quite a bit, she fell on them like a woman possessed. I have seriously never seen a woman attack a potato in quite the same way. As a woman of appetite myself, I could totally appreciate it. I was charmed.
Of such things are friendships born. We kept in touch a little. I read one of her books and loved her humor and handling of emotion and conflict.
Because I knew Molly (and the adorable and talented Eileen Cook), I met clever and charming Maureen McGowan at the NEC RWA Conference a year or two later. It was there that I may have cemented my eventual inclusion in this group by actually falling off my seat in a restaurant after drinking a beer or two. I seriously thought that bench seat went all the way across. It seriously did not, as I found out when I realized I was sitting on the floor with my feet sticking up in the air.
But my point is, and there is a point believe it or not, that it is of the little things that happen that big things begin. I offer some potato to a starving pregnant woman and a few years later, I get to join a cool group blog. I think about those little decisions as my writing, too. It's not just the big decisions, the life and death choices that my heroes and heroines make, that make a book work. It's all those little choices that bring characters to life. The kind of car she drives, what she wears, the relish with which she eats a potato. You know, those telling details that mean so much like when a cook with a drinking problem hands a potato peeler to a troubled teen and ends up saving them both.
So thanks for having me here. I'm thrilled to participate. Let's all take a moment of silence to appreciate that starchy tuber then tell me what one of your favorite telling details in a book has been.
