Next to actually having a good day of writing, what could be better than getting to talk to your readers or potential readers. So that makes last night, my first time of book reading, signing and selling at the Westwood Library a fully great experience.
Even when you say you’re not nervous, the prospect of being alone in a room when you’re hoping to read to the public is daunting. It conjures up every memory of a time when you were stood up or ignored starting back with grade school, when your second grade crush walked right by you without a glance.
But life has a way of evening the score sometimes, so there I was watching the room fill up with both strangers and the friends who surprised me by coming. You get to qvell about your characters, hoping people will find them as interesting as you did for so many years of your life. When they sit there, listening, quiet and attentive, then ask intelligent questions, well is there anything better? Not for a writer there isn’t.
And when they come up and plunk their moneys down in order to buy a copy, that’s just the cherry on the whipped cream on top of the cake. And not fattening either. It’s definitely a good day. And it makes the next writing project seem a little bit more validating, as you sweat over the research, the characters that become frozen, the drama that doesn’t feel dramatic.
Such is the joys of writing!