Yesterday I managed to get to Athens, GA to meet Deirdre Knight, Jia Gayles, and some of their clients. Thanks to Borders on Alps Road… you guys rock!
I have met authors before, of course, and attended booksignings. But this was particularly fun; meeting Deirdre and fellow authors Jennifer St. Giles, Debby Giusti, Shannon Butcher, and Maria Geraci was purely delightful. What lovely ladies they all are – so generous with their time and advice. Listening to questions offered by the audience and to the detailed and usually amusing answers given was a great experience. I can’t say enough about how encouraging this group is to writers, and they appeared to also be supportive of each other and comfortable with each other. This speaks well of The Knight Agency as a group of authors as well as a literary agency.
What did I take away from it all? (Besides a giant sack full of books?) I believe it was Maria who had the most impact on me. One of the attendees asked the authors how much time they devote to writing and Maria had the best answer. She said she writes in 2-hour spurts but she doesn’t get to write every day. Yet she does open her work every day and look at it, even if she doesn’t have time to actually do anything with it. She pointed out how important it is to stay in the story.
I’ve learned this from my two NaNo experiences. I knew it. I tell other people how important it is. But, as we so often do, I fail to follow my own advice. Thanks, Maria, for reminding me and catching me at a time when I most needed the jolt. You’re right. If an author doesn’t stay in the story, it affects the flow. Not only that, characters get surly when you ignore them too long and they become difficult to manage. They hate it when you forget details about them, and this can cause them to wander out of your consciousness and do things that tick you off. Then you have to make nice and get back in their good graces so your story can progress.
This causes you to lose valuable time. I hate it when that happens.
So today, I have a new rule. Stay in the story. No matter what, no matter how busy I am, no matter where I am, no matter what I am doing. I may not have time to add a page to my manuscript but I know I have time to open the file and read the last few pages or so to stay in the story and keep track of my people and events. How hard can it be?
Because either I am a writer or I am not. Anyone can write – that has been established time and time again. But taking the craft – and the profession – seriously is critical, particularly if the goal is to be published. I am a little weird in that I don’t care if an agent or publisher picks me up or not. I don’t measure the quality of my work against whether an agent or publisher likes it. I hope everyone does, but if publication is my end goal I can self-publish if it’s that important to me. And “self-publish” is NOT a dirty word! ~smile~
No, publishing is not my goal. Telling the story well and clearly is the goal. If I do that and do it right, the rest will take care of itself.
Excuse me for a moment while I say something to my lead character: Paula, I left you in a finished story we both knew was not the story we wanted to tell. I apologize. So today we’ll start over, and this time, we’ll tell your story the way it should be told. And I won’t do that to you again.
Again, thanks to The Knight Agency and to Maria, for prodding me and reminding me of who and what I am. Congratulations to you all for your accomplishments and your abilities, and please, please continue to encourage those writers who have not reached your level yet, but who dream of it.
As for me, I am reminded that I am a writer, and Paula and I have a story to tell. So now we will finish what we started in 1993.
Posted by summer1565 
