Me and Dan Wells
Last night I went to a book signing. The first one I have ever gone to, surprisingly. I initially went to go meet Veronica Roth, the author of the Divergent series. I got there two hours early and found one of the last seats available. I ended up sitting next to a very nice gentleman and talking about books and writing for those two hours. God, I love fellow bookies! Anyway, so the panel comes out and I feel myself getting all giddy and lame. The authors that were there were Veronica Roth, Dan Wells, Aprilynne Pike and S.J. Kincaid. I had never heard of the other three but boy was I pleasantly surprised! Dan and April turned out to be hilarious and engaging and humored me with all of my questions. Offered me advice and some funny stories to cherish forever. So, of course, I go and buy their books really quick and wait in line to meet them.
April was awesome! She is VERY funny and outgoing and you can just tell she is incredibly smart. I told her about myself and she gave me a lot of advice. Dan was also hilarious and gave me some great tips! I would have picked their brains all night if I had the chance!
Their stories and advice were very inspiring but also discouraging at the same time and gave me a lot to think about. One of their biggest pieces of advice was to learn to face rejection. April told me that she received over 2 hundred rejection letters before finally finding one agent and one editor that would take her. Both Dan and SJ wrote six other books before their seventh one got picked up. Veronica queried for over a year on one book before finally giving up and writing Divergent. April said that if your first book gets picked up right away you've basically won the lottery.
I'm not that lucky. All of this kind of makes me sad because the truth is, I haven't even thought about what I would do if I wasn't published. I can't imagine my book not being shown to the world. I can't imagine my characters story not being told. And yet there's a HUGE possibility that it won't. The thought breaks my heart. My book is like one of my children. I've given so much of my life to this story that I can't imagine it not seeing the light of day. April said that once you've gotten a hundred rejection letters it's time to move on to another book. But I don't think I'll ever give up on Vistoria. I'll write to every agent in the world until someone says yes. If they don't, I'll go to the publishing companies myself. If they say no, I'll publish it myself!
Watching them up there last night gave me a fresh burst of inspiration, because I know one day I'll be up there, and there will be another writer looking up at me wishing the same thing.
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