Saturday, June 16, 2018

Thank You!


Back in June 2013, I went to my first Philadelphia Writer’s Conference (where I won a prize for a selection from my memoir Rude Awakening) and ran into my writing teacher, Richard D. Bank.  

“Have you signed up to pitch to an agent?” he asked when he saw me standing alone in a crowded room.

“Yes,” I said even though I wasn't sure what pitching an agent meant.

“For what time?”

“Two-fifteen.” 

 “It’s two-thirty,” he said, looking at his watch. “Look! Over there. No one’s sitting there,” he said as he took my hand and pulled me toward a table where a very good looking man was sitting. 

“What do I do?” I asked my teacher over my shoulder as I sat down across from the agent.

“Talk about your book, ” he whispered.

I swallowed hard and started talking to the agent who was looking totally bored until I told him the title of my memoir was Rude Awakening, and about the turbulence at the heart of the story. After I blundered through for several more minutes, he spoke. "What you need to do," he said, "is start a blog and get a following. Get other people interested in your work.".

Having no idea what “start a blog” meant, I nodded and thanked him. Then, I quickly signed up for a seminar on blogging, where I was told to “go as broad as possible. Write about as many experiences as you can.”

Later, in my journal, I began my plan of attack, deciding I wanted to write about my day to day life as both a school bus driver and as a writer, and about how I happened to write a memoir. I wanted, too, to write about ordinary things like: 

Driving to the shore to see the ocean for the first time in a year
Taking a risk and playing it safe 
Turning off the TV and listening to the silence
Exercising and walking,
Meditating and mindfulness practice 
Taking myself out to dinner and a movie
Joining a reading group
Joining a writing group
Being in a church
Walking alone
And about falling in love - with a book, a man, a child - and with everything.

And while I have written extensively on some of these things, on others I have barely begun. So here's to creativity, for you, for me, and for all of us. 

But, most of all, to my readers, who at one point during the past five years helped this blog to garner more than 1500 hits per week, I want to say thank you. If you have liked, shared, commented or simply read my posts know that your support is deeply appreciated.  



My second memoir, Dear Elvis, is available at amzn.to/2uPSFtE





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