Saturday in Halifax

I went to my writing day at Halifax yesterday. I’d almost cancelled because I was worried about the dogs and whether my lodger would manage to supervise them effectively. I decided to go when both dogs spent most of Friday evening ignoring each other, most of the time, sleeping.
I had to get up early as I was catching the 8.10 train and had to feed both dogs, separately, before I went – given half a chance Louis would have eaten all Ted’s food too. The journey to Halifax was straightforward apart from the train being eleven minutes late meaning that I arrived at the venue with seconds to spare before the opening talk started and missed out on the tea and coffee. The day was part of the Calderdale Roadshow which puts on all kinds of literary events. I’d wanted to have a look see with the idea of maybe running a workshop or giving a talk. Sadly, that doesn’t seem very likely. The workshops were good but very worthy, with much discussion of books I’ve never heard of let alone read.
In the lunch break, I had a word with the woman who runs the events. I’d emailed her at least twice, asking about taking part but had had no reply. When I told her what I did for a living, she said, and I quote, ‘half the people here wouldn’t be interested.’ So that put me in my place.
I noticed that the tutors didn’t mingle with the rest of us which made me think of standing in the queue at Swanwick next to Ian (M) Banks who was chatting away to all and sundry.
I didn’t want to sit through the talk on how to get published so I went for a walk, after phoning to make sure the dogs were OK.
Having never been to Halifax I wanted to see what the shops were like. Not bad was the answer. It looks like somewhere I’d definitely want to explore especially as the return train fare was less than a fiver. On my way back to the library I passed a charity stall where I bought 8, yes 8, useful books for £1.
In the afternoon session which was talking about using different viewpoints to tell a story, I mentioned that my choice of viewpoint was often governed by which magazine I intended to submit it to. To that the tutor replied that markets were not something she wanted to discuss, they weren’t appropriate to the session.
Oh well, at least I tried.
The sessions were useful though, but rather heavy going and I’m not sure if many people came away with very much.
I was home just after six. Ted’s owners had been to collect him and all was well. I decided to take the rest of the day off as I’d done some writing on the train. Whether I’ll go to any more of those events will remain to be seen.