No, I am not crazy. No, I do not dress up as characters from the book when I go to see the movie. And no I don’t think the wand actually works.
I tried it. Wingardia Leviosar…. Nothing.
No, the reason I bought this wand is because I was in NYC at the conference and during a lunch break I went to see the Harry Potter exhibit at the Discovery Museum. It featured all sorts of movie props from all of the different HP movies.
Props, costumes – I can’t believe how tiny Helena Bonham Carter actually is - and a life size Kreacher and Dobby. Really cool amazing stuff. And as I was walking through the exhibit I thought of all the things I had learned at the conference.
Where publishing is going, where self-publishing is going, how agents are reacting and the numbers. Lots and lots of numbers. Twenty five percent, seventeen percent, fifteen percent.
I’m not a numbers girl at all, but I paid attention. Also I listened once again to why Tweeting is essential to career building. I’m very proud to say I actually signed up, but I’m still learning. Hashtags. Apparently it’s all about hashtags.
As I meandered through the exhibit and saw the Dragon’s Egg and Hermione’s Time Twister necklace and Voldermort’s wand I realized that all of this came about from a person’s imagination. Just that. One person had an idea and turned that idea into a book for people to read and enjoy.
It really struck me. Sometimes we get so bogged down in the business of writing we (me) forget about the joy and fun and creativity of writing. We’re all just people who have ideas and any one of us could write a story as amazing as Harry Potter as sweeping as Gone with Wind as emotional as The Room (I’m going by what Molly said about this book).
It’s all in us. For those of us who make up stories and write them down.
So I bought the ridiculously expensive silly toy wand and I put it on my writing desk to remind me always what writing is really about.
Also I use it to tease my cats… I think they’re afraid I’m going to curse them but I’ve already explained to them it doesn’t really work. Silly cats.
7 comments:
Now I really want to go to that exhibit and bring my teens. So glad you are on twitter! What is your twitter name? I was looking for you the other day to tell you about the pic of you on my blog.
Stephanie, I love that you bought that wand. I can tell in a book if a writer is really bring passion to their storytelling, or if they are just trying to fit into a trend.
Steph, thanks for this. I needed to hear that right now. PS - I have a purple dragon on my desk for that same reason.
It's like what Cruise said in her wonderwoman talk - at the end of that first week it's just your book on a shelf for a reader - readers don't care about all the crap we're obsessed with. I love that you bought that wand (surely you could tell through all that hard time I was giving you!) - I'm on twitter too! Everyone come find me! mollyokwrites
Great post, Steph! I think I'm going to keep my wonderwoman ring from Jennifer Crusie's talk for the same reason.
And yes, we need to know your twitter ID so we can follow you. :)
Mine's @MaureenMcGowan :)
I believe (let's see if I do this right) I'm @StephDoyleRW (romance writer... isn't that clever?)
I'm actually not tweeting yet - I want to follow some authors and kind of get a feel for it first.
I'm still trying to find people. Kwana, Molly and Maureen...consider yourself followed!
Thank you, Steph. I left conference with my head stuffed so full of business items that I forgot to leave room for that kind of inspiration and I need it right now! That book that's due in September? Ain't gonna write itself!
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