The Essential Art of Pimping (Part I)

So you all know I was all excited this past week...

Because Miss Celie was coming to town.

That is, Tayari Jones was in town!! And she did what she does best: she pimped her novel Leaving Atlanta.

Tayari reminds me of the wisest pimp, a pimp who has a small stable of women. All of his women are out working the corner except one: a 75-year old prostitute well past her prime. But that pimp sees something in her, and he yells...

Get up, Old Girl... You still got what it takes! You still got some work in ya! Get on out there and work that corner."

Yeah, that is a crude example. But I tell ya... Tayari looked at her critically acclaimed novel Leaving Atlanta and was like:

"I'm going to read from this here book, even though it is 5 years old. And I'm gonna SELL some of these books tonight."

Yeah, Tayari... you sure do know how to pimp a book, man!!

And I'm down for that!!!

Anyway, she gave readings at the Marg.aret Mitc.hell house, along with Southern Author Lee Sm.ith, and at the .AWP conference, with Ka.ye Gibb.ons. (No I'd never heard of these two other authors before, although they were Oprah book club authors. I don't even watch Oprah, so...)

Tayari was more concerned about the .AWP reading, but I told her that I would be at both talks. Afterall, The MM house is only a block from my job. My plan was to get to work around six in the morning and leave for the talk around 6:45 pm.

Now, here's the first problem. That's a long shift. It would have been cool, but we have been thrown headlong into the busy season at work, so I was working my ass off for at least 10 hours that day. So by the time of the talk, I was BONE tired. I'd been a little sick during the week, so heck, I really wanted to just lay down somewhere and take a PHAT nap. My plan was to go to the MM house and find a seat waaay in the back up against the wall. That way, I could lean up against it and close my eyes if need be.

Well, I'd been WAILING and WHINING really hard to Tayari for at least a month about that damn 10 dollar MM house entry fee, so she put me on a list and I got in free. (Now, I had my 10 bucks just in case she was tripping). I went in and saw her across the room and waved... I was trying, at the same time to scope a seat off in the cut somewhere.

Anyway, Tayari makes a beeline towards me. (I was sort of looking around trying to see who she was heading towards). She was a little pissed at the moment. I won't mention here why she was so perturbed!

(But Tayari, that ish was funny! If you needed to handle some folk, you know I had your back! Ain't nothing wrong with a little shanktification, if you know what I mean.)

But she calmed down. Thank goodness. I was too tired to have to help her with a ATLien beatdown...

I ended up sitting in the front row (which I wasn't all that crazy about, as I had to fight the urge to lay across the chairs, lol!).

Yep, I, LadyLee had a reserved seat!!

We sat down and waited for things to start. Tayari had on the most interesting shoes as always... some strange high heel patent-leather shoes. She wears the craziest shoes. They are always nice, and that is coming from someone like me who HATES heels. She seems to go find the highest high heels she can find, even though she is 100 feet tall... I was wondering how the hell she was going to get up on that small stage without falling. I would have hated to have laughed at her, you know.

So I was sitting there on the front row with Tayari and Lee Sm.ith, when Tayari turns to me and says...

"Nichelle finished your manuscript critique. She did a line edit of your manuscript."

**gargantuan crickets**

My breath caught in my throat when she said that. I almost shed a tear.

Now, I'd won a manuscript edit a few months ago, and I sent the first half of my 1000 page manuscript to Nich.elle Tramb.le a couple of weeks ago. I was stoked about this, but at the same time terrified, because I am a fan of Nichelle's work, and I know from her website and blog that she has a TON of editing experience. So I've been walking around, staring into the sun and sky, silently wondering what the status of the critique was. I was too afraid to email Nichelle (I HATE bothering people, and I am THOROUGLY and UTTERLY confused about all of this damn writers etiquette), as I thought she may have found it excruciatingly boring and had tossed it out into LA traffic.

But when Tayari said what she said , I had to ask...

"So, what did she say, Tayari?"

Tayari didn't answer, only said what she said before. She only explained to me what "line-edit" meant... I made a mental note to go look that up (I pontificate things like no other!)

So for the next few minutes, I was sitting there thinking...

"Oooh noooo, she didn't like it! These #$#%*@ broads been sitting around dogging my manuscript out! Uggh!!"

I had the urge to go sit off in the corner, rip my clothes and dump ashes on my head like they use to do in the old bible days.

I got over that real quick. Heck, I LIKE my manuscript. I'd been mulling this over in my mind for the past week, and I decided that I LIKE it if no one else does. I convinced myself real quick that that was all that mattered, doggonit!!

Yeah!

I was a wide awake deer in the headlights after that.

Anyway, I was Tayari's bootleg entourage, and I looked to be the only member. That was cool. She asked me to hold her camera and gift cards while she went up on stage. I was happy to do so...

*Ladylee slyly peering at gift cards to see if they were from Wal-mart or Target. LadyLee deciding quickly not to hijcack them since they weren't from Wal-Mart or Target.*

LOL!!

Anyway, the talk at the Mar.garet M.itch.ell House was pegged as a conversation between two southern authors.

I found it to be quite interesting. Tayari pimped read from her first novel Leaving Atlanta, and did an excellent job of fielding questions from the audience. Miss S.mith read from her Appalac.hian novel. Now THAT was interesting, but that Appal.achian language left me a bit dazed and confused.

Their "conversation" was very interesting. The whole urban southern writer and appalachian southern writer convo about the hardships involved in writing each was on some whole nother level..

Interesting talk... And, as usual, Tayari sold a lot of books, especially Leaving Atlanta.

Way to pimp that book, Celie!! Leaving Atlanta still got a little rap left in it! I don't know how you do it, but I know, ten years from now, with several books under your belt, you will STILL be able to efficiently pimp Leaving Atlanta!

Now the .AWP reading and signing? That's a whole 'nother story...

Stay tuned for... "The Essential Art of Pimping (Part II)."