Motivation...

Last night I went to Jennifer Weiner's reading, O&A and book signing at the Lincoln Triangle Barnes & Noble. This was my first opportunity to hear and meet her after admiring her writing for years. She is definitely one of my literary idols ~ not that my novel-in-progress Coventry would indicate that. But she is.

The place was packed! They brought out the wristbands which were given to people who purchased the book to indicate that we had priority for seating. Now, to my knowledge, the last time those wristbands were brought out was for Liza's CD signing. But I digress. At any rate, the place was PACKED. And there were like 4 guys there ~ one was a friend of hers there for support, and one was her...I think it was agent's father. The other two I could see were obviously there in hopes of getting some from their girlfriend/wife later that night for being "sensitive". When the guy was introducing her, Jen walked into the little area between the door and the window and saw us all and mouthed "OH! MY! GOD!" then went to get her cell phone to take pictures of us. That in and of itself made me happy. That she's still so down-to-earth it amazes her that so many people show up for her readings/signings.

And it only got better! She started off quipping that she had this dream of having a room full of guys at one of her events if for no other reason than to be able to talk to her Nana and be all "It was a sausage fest in there!" "What? There was a lot of meat in the room?" "No Nana! The room was full of cock!" "There's something wrong with your clock?" Only then did she realize that she'd actually said "cock". She went on to say it a few more times, which was funny ~ in various contexts. And then she told some other stories that were hysterical. She finally quipped "I'd better take some questions before I have NO friends left!"

The questions ranged from things about her books to things about writing and getting published. Someone asked if the people she painted in a negative light ever called her on it, and she said "The thing is, if they're that bad, they usually don't even realize it." But then talked about the one time one person DID appear to figure it out and asked her about it, she said "Now what makes you think that?" which puts that person in the position of either back pedaling or admitting all the shitty things they've done, but they usually don't recognize themselves. HAHA! And she talked about how you can put the funny to you stuff in a first draft, just be prepared to (most likely) cut it in revisions. Which made me happy... If I go with redoing my diary of a first year teacher idea for NaNa 2009 (I got as far as Thanksgiving in the year my first attempt...which not surprisingly corresponded with where I was in my first year of teaching), I can totally use "Emily the Evil" as the name for the assistant principal knowing I can change it in revisions. :) Plus "Emily the Evil" is THREE words every time it's used! (Ok, now I'm being silly, but. Yeah!)

So I got to meet her briefly...as usual I was all tongue-tied. It takes me a couple of times meeting someone for me to open up and be looser ~ my friends in a Broadway show can testify to that! But it was really cool! I was glad she was so down-to-earth and REAL. That's not always the case ~ there is one author (who shall go unnamed) I met twice at signings...and in between a show based on her books got picked up, and the difference in how she was between the two years was SCARY. SOOOOOO Hollywood the second year. But Jen was great ~ she takes a pretty hands-off approach to her works being optioned ("other than cashing that check ASAP" she quipped when asked about books into movies) ~ and so she's, like I said, still really down to earth and humble.

What last night did was get me inspired again about writing. I've done NaNoWriMo for the past three years ~ "won" the last two. I put it in quotes because one year was essentially fanfiction which could never be published and the other I still have a long way to go with (like fleshing out a whole character and adding in a LOT of stuff)...but ultimately from the interest I've heard from people when I talk about it, that one MAY be publishable. The first year I lost (meaning I didn't hit 50,000 words) largely because it was sort of in the vein of The Nanny Diaries, but about a first year teacher, and I was IN my first year teaching, so I really couldn't get much past Thanksgiving and make it believable. That one also seems publishable...but finding an agent who wouldn't be like "WTF?" at the difference in tone and even genre (one is pretty firmly chick lit, the other more literary fic...I'll let you figure out which one is which) ~ hey, i"m nothing if not versatile. I would like to revisit that first novel attempt this year. Start from scratch and really do it right.

But I want to improve my technique. And I've decided to that end I will take some money that would have gone to theatre tickets or a trip or Lasik and enroll in a class at Gotham Writer's Workshop in the fall. I've been to a few of their free things and liked them ~ though i can tell it will vary from teacher to teacher...so finding a match may be an interesting proposition. Now...I may hate it. There is a big difference between a 30 minute or hour introduction and a 10 week course. But I figure if nothing else I WILL get some practice with technique, and that never really hurts does it?

So... Yeah. I've put my most recent short story on here (I think). I may use that for my piece in the first class I take...but we'll see. Depends on what I learn.

Fun, fun! And following a dream I've had even if I didn't know it. Writing. :)