The Great Unexpected Meeting with an Award-winning Author

This post is long overdue, but it fits here.

A few weeks ago, my boyfriend and I attended a Pittsburgh Arts and Lectures event of Black, White & Read All Over for Sharon Creech. She wrote Walk Two Moons (Newbery Award), Love That Dog, etc. Lots and lots of children/YA books. Her new one is The Great Unexpected.

I recognized her name because of Walk Two Moons and had managed to finish reading it before the event. Huzzah huzzah. The book had been sitting on my To Read shelf for months. Grad school had prevented me from getting to it yet, and I'd never read it as a child. It's an award winner, so it deserves to be read. And because it won an award, I figured it would be beneficial to listen to the author speak.

I did not figure on meeting her before the event, though!

Mike and I had gotten sandwiches and a drink from the Carnegie Library's cafe. But when we got to its lecture hall, we saw a sign that read: No Food or Drink Beyond This Point in the Auditorium. Well, crap. So while people filed past us, we stood in front of the ticket booth, scarfing the food. A friend of mine worked behind the counter. She recognized me and had handed me the tickets as soon as we had walked up, so that wasn't a problem. And there didn't seem to be many people (sadly) compared to other events I'd gone to (though it was marketed as a children's event), so we weren't too worried about not getting seats together.

As we stood there, a woman lingered near the wall next to us. I just figured that she was waiting for someone else to arrive. But after a few minutes, she turned to us and said:

"Are you here for the event?"
"Yes!" we said. "We're just trying to finish our food because of that sign."
"Oh." And then she said, "Well, I'm Sharon Creech."

WHAT?!

We graciously greeted her and I told her what I had planned to say during the signing. And the words came out much more smoothly than they would have later. There is something about a calmer environment that brings about calmer words. When you're standing in a signing line, you have to spit out your message while being aware that the people behind you want you to hurry up and finish so they can get a turn, and the event's host is ushering people along if they dally too long.

But in that entryway, there was no one but the three of us and my friend behind the counter. I told Sharon that I'd just finished her book a week prior to the event, and that I was impressed by its parallel plot structure.

Then she said, "Are you teachers?" And Mike and I laughed.

To think... she's so used to dealing with children that any adult she meets must either be a teacher or a parent. Why else would 20-30-something-year-old people attend her event? I told her that I was a writer and had just completed my MFA, and that seemed to perfectly smooth over the situation.

By that point, someone started talking on stage. We bid Sharon goodbye, tossed out the last bites of the sandwich, drained the rest of the drink, and took our seats. I ended up purchasing three other signed books while there and got her to personalize Walk Two Moons. While waiting in line, I read and finished Love That Dog, which is an awesome book.

I feel bad, though. In all the hubbub of seeing her again, I just kinda walked up beside her to get the picture taken... without asking... So many people were doing the same that it just slipped my mind. I think I made up for it by making her laugh afterward when I told her how quickly I read Love That Dog. By that point, I had already started Hate That Cat, too. So Sharon, on the off-chance that you're reading this, I'm sorry for presuming like that. 

Post-NaNoWriMo Recovery

It has been four days since NaNoWriMo ended. I managed to complete the challenge on the 29th, though I had to add an extra mini-scene in order to appease NaNo's word count algorithm or whatever it used in that validation box thingie. Stupid thing was about 200 words off...

Anyway, it's been four days since the challenge. I can feel my fingers itching to continue the story. Here at work, where I write for social media, my hands want to grab a pen and start writing again. My fingers want to open a word doc and add a new scene. That compulsion to "Go Go GO!" is still there. And yet, life goes on.

This past weekend, I attended my best friend's baby shower. The event was also a recovery period for her because she also completed the challenge. She's rather proud of herself because she has nearly 100 pages of a story that didn't exist before... both the fleshed out story and the pages. This is the biggest project she's completed of this nature. I'm very proud of her, and eagerly await little Ava.

This past weekend, I helped my boyfriend rearrange some furniture. Specifically, one of my bookshelves. We have a wall-o-books now and an empty corner that, is temporarily housing a keyboard until we can replace it with a treadmill or some other exercise device, if it'll fit. The keyboard will return to its spot in front of my bookshelves, where Ember has continued to lay despite not having a "roof" over her head. Her spot is her spot, regardless of what's there, I suppose.

This past weekend, I finished reading Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad and last night, I finished Walk Two Moons, which will soon be signed at another Drue Heinz literary event. Freakin' thing made me cry.

This past weekend, I did not write. But last night I did. The itching fingers got the better of me and I managed to jot down a few ideas while at work, and fleshed them out a bit at home. I didn't hit NaNoWriMo's required word count, but that's okay. A thousand words is still a great accomplishment for a regular day.

Despite completing NaNoWriMo, I feel like I have failed just because I didn't write this weekend. Everyone needs a break from the insanity that was November. But was it really insanity? Most of my writing occurred late at night, at least around 8 or 9 for a couple hours. I didn't fret nearly as much as other people seem to, and yet I still fell behind. My best friend would do writing sprints while using an online app as inspiration to keep pushing. Then she would sit down and use a notebook and pen to write thousands of words during the night. She had the schedule to manage nocturnal writing, and I'm impressed that she managed to do so much in such a short amount of time. But are our accomplishments different? Why do I feel as if she is more of a writer than I am, despite the fact that I got the degree?

Why do I feel like I haven't yet earned this degree?