The Secret Diary of Lizzie Bennet by Bernie Su, Kate Rorick

audience—how to best use the tools available
to us (seems like everyone is working on a shoestring on the Internet) and how to market most effectively. We learned about the future of storytelling from Loose-Fishery, the biggest transmedia
company around, and saw another talk about multi-communication platforms from a designer at an app company called Pemberley Digital. And I know to the layperson (aka Lydia, who camped out in the
hallway and set up her own mini autograph-signing station until the event organizers told her to stop) it seems boring, but I was deeply intrigued. And Charlotte? Charlotte was
fascinated
.
    Aside from the awesome weirdness of meeting people who watch my videos in real life—and
like
them—we met several people who run their own companies, who were enthusiastic
about talking to us about what we were doing and how we did it. We collected business cards out the wazoo. (“Wazoo” is the technical term.) Charlotte even arranged for us to take a tour
of the YouTube offices in Los Angeles on the way back home.
    I am so, so lucky to be a part of this ridiculously weird and wonderful community.
    But not every encounter was full of enthusiasm and learning experiences. There was one particular out-of-the-blue moment that was not wonderful—just plain weird.
    After all, it’s not every day your second-grade husband comes up to you while you’re filming and demands that you call him “Mr. Collins.”
    That’s right, Ricky Collins, the spastic kid who played the Wizard of Floss in our elementary school play about hygiene and managed to fall off the stage, has decided to become a web video
content creator. Oh, and he tricked someone into giving him money for it. Although, from what I could gather, he doesn’t know much about web video—but it’s okay, he likely has
“people” for that. People who call him Mr. Collins.
    Also, he seems to have developed a fondness for multisyllabic words. I guess that’s what comes from losing the school spelling bee at an impressionable age to the ever-impressive Charlotte
Lu. And he was rather overdressed for the conference. Web video is more of a blazer-over-jeans-and-graphic-T-shirt crowd, not a Men’s-Wearhouse-oversized-suit type place. (Although
there’s a man who would appreciate a peacock-blue pantsuit on a woman. Too bad he’s engaged.)
    I was so taken aback by him, I sort of brushed him off. Charlotte says I should have been nicer. More open and politically conscientious. After all, he’s a man with investors and a company
in our field. But it’s kind of hard when the annoying kid who grew up down the street from you is tumbling into your videos and demanding that you address him like he’s lord of the
manor.
    But enough about Ricky Collins. I doubt our paths are destined to cross much in the future. That’s what Facebook was invented for—to keep people you don’t care to remember at a
polite distance.
    For now, we are headed home . . . except we don’t have a home to go to.
    Not kidding.
    When Jane got back from her perfect night with Bing and Mom “decided” that the kitchen cabinets were out of date, she was apparently inspired to have the entire kitchen redone. She
justifies it by saying it will raise the value of the house—which makes me nervous that my parents really are thinking about selling the house—but I know her reasoning is deeper. More
twisted and devious.
    She is using this remodel to kick us all out . . . and cleverly deduced that upon hearing our predicament, Bing would offer Jane a place to stay.
    So for the next two weeks, Bing and Jane will be cohabitating, ostensibly to save her the double commute from cousin Mary’s house an hour south. But we all know the real motive. And
I’m happy to do my little part to thwart it.
    What Mom didn’t count on is that when Jane asked, Bing was happy to extend me an invitation to stay at Netherfield as well.
    So, instead of being squished up in Mary and Aunt