Thursday, October 25, 2012

Meeting Authors

A couple of weeks ago I had the fabulous opportunity to listen to Tess Hilmo (award winning author of With A Name Like Love) speak to my daughter's writing club.

My daughter with Tess 
and the fancy signing pen her son made her. :)


She was amazing, of course, and got the girls excited about writing, plotting, reading, words, names, and almost everything else about writing you can think of. I know the girls had a blast, but even I thought it was soooo helpful for me as a writer. In fact, here's a method of plotting a novel she shared that I'd never heard of before.

What authors have you met? Have you learned valuable writing tips from them?

P.S. It is snowing outside....what???


13 comments:

Robin said...

Oh, I just followed your link to Tess's plotting method. I'm totally doing that for NaNo. It get a little thrill reading about other writers that aren't crazy heavy plotters-makes me feel less guilty, I suppose;)

Cassie Mae said...

Oh I'll have to follow that link :)

I've met a few authors, and each one it's like meeting a celebrity and I get all fan girl over it, lol.

jaybird said...

I've met only a few authors. But I totally dorked it when I met Jane Green. She couldn't have been nicer, but I got all stupid and a little star struck. I was all fan girl and said something very original like "Your books are funny!"

No duh!

ilima said...

Robin-Awesome. Glad you could use it. So excited for your nano!

Cassie-I'm exactly the same way. They are just so cool!

Jaybird-I get fan girl too. And I usually have to explain to my husband (or other non writers with me) that this is kind of a big deal. Ha!

Livia Peterson said...

I've never met any authors in person before but I've met a ton online! And I've have made some new friendships with them which is amazing :)

And I should follow that link, too...

It's snowing already...wow, time flew by fast.

Rachel said...

In person, I've met a couple authors.

Jayne Ann Krentz- Her advice was to join RWA for support and continued learning of the craft. She also said critique groups are a joke. Write what you love, and if you like it and are happy with the result, that's good enough. She said often times in critique groups you have the blind leading the blind. Unless you come across a truly amazing critique partner or two.

Charles de Lint- He was the friendliest big-time author I've met. My friend and I chatted with him after he signed our books. My friend writes fantasy and he offered to send her the outlines for the writing classes he teaches. We asked him for advice on writing and his main piece of advice is to read a ton. Then he said to self-publish. LOL!

Karen Witemeyer- I met her in a writing group when I lived in TX. It was before her first book came out. Her advice wasn't very encouraging. She just kept explaining how hard it is to get published and how most never make it.

Heather Murphy said...

Tuesday night I had the amazing opportunity to meet David Kirby, author of "Death at Sea World". He and Dr. Naomi Rose, marine scientist for the Humane Society spoke about the book and other issues regarding whales and dolphins. I was inspired!

Last month I met Dianne Venetta, a local fiction writer. I had done some promotional work for Dianne so it was awesome to meet her in person

Kelley Lynn said...

I met Sara Zarr at a writer's conference last weekend. Wow. That was so cool. AND she was chosen to critique the first ten pages of my MS so I got to talk writing with Sara for fifteen minutes. It was amazing.

Your daughter is SO adorable!

ilima said...

Livia-yeah, I get giddy when an author responds to me on twitter. :)

Rachel-I hope that I'm always encouraging writers when I'm uber famous. :)

Heather-cool. It's great to be inspired.

Kelley-Wow. I would LOVE to meet Sara Zarr. I bet that was incredible.

Emily R. King said...

I haven't met many, but I want to! I should be better at checking out when my local authors are doing signings. They would be fun to go to!

Libby said...

Recently met Michael Chabon and Jasper Fforde - awesome!

Nicole said...

That's such an awesome experience for you and your daughter! I've met a handful of authors, including Simone Elkeles (Hilarious and down-to-earth) and Brandon Sanderson (pretty much the highlight of my year). ;)

ilima said...

Emily-I wish I could go to more book signings, too.

Libby-Cool. I love meeting new authors.

Nicole-It was pretty special to share it with my daughter. :)