Sunday, July 09, 2006

Authors are wonderful people


On Thursday, I went to hear Susan Kandel talk about her new book, Shamus in the Green Room.

As it turns out, there were only a few people at the reading, and although I didn't intend to tip my hand, with my first question she asked if I was a writer. Well, yes, I'm working on it.... so she asked all about my book and was very encouraging. She spent a lot of time talking to me about her process and what worked and gave me some great advice.

Then Kira and I went up to have our book signed and she pulled out a picture of her youngest, Maud. Naturally I had to say what a fantastic name Maud is, which is when she asked Kira her name and lo and behold her oldest is Kyra. A connection over names is a true connection if ever there was on! So, she signed my book with very encouraging words and I left walking on air thinking that if she could do it, I could do it. I didn't even want to see which other writers were coming because how could I duplicate that.


Well... Saturday night we found ourselves back at Third Place Books and I noticed that the room was set up for another reading - in 15 minutes. Trevor Scott was coming and he wrote thrillers which are very similar to mysteries, so why not stay and listen. I did, and again, there were only a few people and again, he talked mostly to me about process and the business and all about writing for an hour.

Then came the book signing... at which point he pointed to his business card and said that if I sent him some pages he'd be happy to look at them and offer suggestions.

That's pretty much the equivilent of the book signing lottery. It NEVER happens. People try forever to make a connection with a published author and it just doesn't happen. I think my jaw is still on the floor of the bookstore.

2 comments:

Kathleen said...

Robin that is just awesome. It really sounds like things are coming together.

Also, good luck with the detoxing. I really hope that you find an answer and start to feel better soon.

Robin L. said...

Thanks, Kat! I'm hoping you start writing something soon (with all your spare time of course). I'd love to be writing buddies!