National Night... Books?
Aug. 8th, 2007 01:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lydamorehouseLast night was National Night Out where neighbors get together and share pickel rolls, stale crackers and such. My family and I strolled over a few block with our M&M cookies to share, and we got to talking to some people. One of our neighbors fondly recalled the time I handed her copies of my books that I'd had stashed in my car (I do that a lot.) We joked that I should bring over a few novels and leave them as freebies next to the deserts.
Next thing you know, I'd gone home for a half dozen copies of Tate's Tall, Dark & Dead and my Archangel Protocol. Shawn, my partner, put up a note that said, "Free! Local author. Please take!"
The reaction was, as we say here in Minnesota, interesting.
By in large, people couldn't quite grok the fact that their neighbor -- a dumpy, stay-at-home lesbian mom -- was in fact a New York published author. They weren't unkind in any way, just baffled. There was a lot of the typical, "You wrote this? All of it?" And, "You got published... oh! Berkley!?" (Because they were expecting a vanity press). And, "Do you do this for a living???"
Shawn and I remarked on the fact that, before I started getting serious about writing, I'd never met an real, LIVE authors before either. I knew books were written by people, but I just never conceivd that those people could be sitting next to me on the bus or standing in front of me in the grocery store.
I think, in fact, meeting a real author for the first time broke that (what is it called?) 5th wall for me. Once I met and talked to someone who'd done what I was trying to do, what I was trying to do no longer felt unattainable. If so-and-so had done it (and they were a real, normal person), then it followed that I could too.
Even so, occassionally Shawn will still have a moment like our neighbors had. The first time I went to a RWA meeting and I mentioned it was at the house of Connie Brockway, Shawn just about fell over. "Connie Brockway!" She said, "She's, like, a real author."
As opposed, you know, to the fake one she's got at home. :-)
Next thing you know, I'd gone home for a half dozen copies of Tate's Tall, Dark & Dead and my Archangel Protocol. Shawn, my partner, put up a note that said, "Free! Local author. Please take!"
The reaction was, as we say here in Minnesota, interesting.
By in large, people couldn't quite grok the fact that their neighbor -- a dumpy, stay-at-home lesbian mom -- was in fact a New York published author. They weren't unkind in any way, just baffled. There was a lot of the typical, "You wrote this? All of it?" And, "You got published... oh! Berkley!?" (Because they were expecting a vanity press). And, "Do you do this for a living???"
Shawn and I remarked on the fact that, before I started getting serious about writing, I'd never met an real, LIVE authors before either. I knew books were written by people, but I just never conceivd that those people could be sitting next to me on the bus or standing in front of me in the grocery store.
I think, in fact, meeting a real author for the first time broke that (what is it called?) 5th wall for me. Once I met and talked to someone who'd done what I was trying to do, what I was trying to do no longer felt unattainable. If so-and-so had done it (and they were a real, normal person), then it followed that I could too.
Even so, occassionally Shawn will still have a moment like our neighbors had. The first time I went to a RWA meeting and I mentioned it was at the house of Connie Brockway, Shawn just about fell over. "Connie Brockway!" She said, "She's, like, a real author."
As opposed, you know, to the fake one she's got at home. :-)
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-08 06:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-09 03:39 pm (UTC)There are also some authors that I loved SO MUCH as a kid, I actually go out of my way not to meet them. I once avoided Katherine Kurtz an entire CONvergence because I was afraid that if I met her, she'd drop a notch in my fangirl squeeness, you know?
no subject
Date: 2007-08-08 09:07 pm (UTC)do u wear a fake author mustache too? ;-)
so how long between the epiphany of meeting a Real Author and becoming a Real Author...?
no subject
Date: 2007-08-08 10:27 pm (UTC)Reminds me of Edith Bunker's talking about Elizabeth Taylor, able to picture ET brushing her teeth but not spitting it out.
Also, Real Authors -- Free with two box tops and postage . . .
no subject
Date: 2007-08-09 12:19 am (UTC)*ducks and runs very fast*
no subject
Date: 2007-08-09 12:40 am (UTC)Curious.
-Mel
no subject
Date: 2007-08-09 03:36 pm (UTC)jpj
Date: 2007-08-09 03:35 am (UTC)Harlan Ellison wrote a great story called "Tired Old Man" based on his experience of finding himself at a party talking to a very nice old man. Once the party was over, he found out it was Cornell Woolrich, the famous mystery writer who wrote "Rear Window" and other stories. He was blown away.
So it happens to us all.
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