THE NAME TAG

   In February, I attended the PubWest Conference in Pasadena, CA. The participants wore name  badges with their company or other designation. Mine said - Author.
   I discovered this brought  about lots of conversations with people not attending the conference. As I rode up and down the elevator of the hotel, up to my room and down to the meeting spaces, someone would note the badge and say, "Oh,you're an author. What have you written?" The perfect query for me to launch into a sentence or two about my quirky, cozy mystery THE EROTICA BOOK CLUB FOR NICE LADIES. The title always brought a smile and usually a question about the plot, which I was happy to answer.
   Later I remembered a term I thought was used primarily for promoting movie plots but now applied to all kinds of projects.I found out it's credited to Ilene Rosenzweig and Michael Caruso, while he was editor of Vanity Fair. The term came from a scenario of an accidental meeting with someone important in the elevator - and trying to make a lasting impression. Now a variety of people, project managers, salespeople, evangelists and policy makers commonly rehearse and use this way to get their point across quickly - from 30 seconds to two minutes is suggested.
   Unplanned and unknowingly, I'd made several "elevator pitches." I wonder how many books I sold.

The Paper Bag

This morning I sorted a maze of things on my part of the garage shelves, a task put off all winter - or longer. I picked up a small, empty brown paper bag from Chipotle's that had paragraphs of printed words down one side. I was surprised to read a legend from Paul Coehlo. At the bottom of the bag was printed the fantastic logo, "Cultivating Thought - Author Series."
Here's a brief synopsis of a familiar tale. A man carried water every day to his village, using 2 old pitchers... tied to a piece of wood across his shoulders. One water pot had small cracks and each day, the man lost most of the water from it. One day, the pitcher apologized for the flaw and the man smiled. "Look at the path tomorrow. The edge of the path is filled with growing vegetables and flowers. Each day I water this garden path line to turn your flaw into my advantage. On the other side of the bag, was a message from Paul. "We all, at some point, grow old and acquire other qualities, and these can always be turned to good advantage." Now I can hardly wait to read another Chipotle bag.