A to Z Challenge 2013

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Meetings and Research

Yesterday I had a meeting scheduled with an old friend of mine who is going to help me with research for my book. I was supposed to meet this person at a pricey coffee shop downtown, which was okay despite the fact that I don't usually frequent this particular coffee shop chain. Unfortunately, his assistant failed to tell me that there are TWO pricey coffee shops in that same one block radius, and in fact that they are part of the SAME coffee shop chain. So I went to one, and of course my friend was at the other.

After spending over an hour waiting (I had assumed I was early and had remembered the wrong time), I got ahold of the assistant once more to see what was going on. He had the nerve to act like it was my fault, that I should have read his mind and known which particular coffee shop the meeting would be at.

In any event, I was able to reschedule it for this afternoon and hopefully things will go much smoother. It just irritates me that I have to save face for this idiot assistant, swallow my pride, and not rant about how inept my friend's assistant is. Just keep in mind that the research is the important part, not the irritating habits of ignorant people. Hopefully I will get alot of good information this afternoon so that I can continue with my book.

Update: Looks like my friend has been called to a meeting by a very important person (I'm keeping all of this very general and non-specific, because the guy is a rather important person himself), so I had to reschedule for the 25th. So looks like that portion of my book will need to wait a bit longer.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Annoying, no question.

Interesting, though ... in a way, you did a fair amount of research during your coffee shop adventure. It might not have been what you wanted to research, but I bet you got an awful lot of human nature/characteristic of important people/coffee shop people who think they are better than their patrons.

Some of this "real life" research is far more valuable than we give it credit for. (The entire premise of my second novel came up via an accidental misunderstanding).

Hope you're able to use it at some point : )

Eric said...

Actually it was really funny, sitting there in the coffee shop watching people. I rode my motorcycle to the meeting, so I was wearing jeans, a black leather jacket, and toting a black helmet. I definitely did not fit the usual archetype that frequented said coffee shop. So yes, I did get to view alot of interesting human interactions, opinions (of me, most likely), etc. Given that my book relies heavily on my ability to create (for the reader) a view into the human spirit and compassion, I definitely value any new interactions I have with different sectors of society (even if I am the butt of the joke to others, heh heh)

Angela Ackerman said...

Hi Eric--thanks for entering the blurb contest over at The Bookshelf Muse. Unfortunately your blurb is one sentence too long (see rules--the pitch is to be 1-2 sentences in length). If you would like to get it down to two sentences, then feel free to resubmit. :-)

Angela