Fiction author Robin Brande talks about writing, reading, and other vital matters

I just got off the phone with my friend Barry Lyga, whose novel The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl will be in stores in just a few months. It’s a great book, and I happen to know because I had the privilege of being the first person who ever got to read it, back when it was just a baby manuscript. This is one of the benefits of being friends with other writers. You get to sample their stuff straight off the grill.

Barry is up at Book Expo America (BEA) in Washington, D.C. right now, meeting with booksellers and publishing people (and a few movie people, too). Today he had his book signing, and there was a line in front of his table the whole time. In one hour he signed over 100 advance copies of his novel! People want to read this book. They picked up copies for themselves, their teenagers, their friends. And even though he was busy signing the whole time, Barry also managed to have some nice conversations with the people as they came through. That’s more a pleasure than some readers know. We actually love to talk to you.

In short, just the kind of day you’d like to have as a writer.

I wrote a few days ago about Writer’s Karma–this notion that good things can come from treating our fellow writers well.

But the smile on my face tonight was caused by something else. It’s this idea that a rising tide floats all boats. When one of us does well, we all get to enjoy that success. And by “we all,” I mean not only writers who are friends with each other, but also the writing community in general. In the same way that we all wince at these plagiarism scandals and other bad author behavior, we get to applaud writers winning the Pulitzer and the Booker and the Edgar. Or even just having a great day signing books. It’s fun to see your peers do well on any scale.

I hope all the writers at BEA this weekend are having as good of a time as Barry. You deserve it. You started a book, you finished it, you mailed it off. You no doubt wrote another. You kept going. These are among the reasons for your success. As we learned in a lively discussion over at J.A. Konrath’s blog on Monday this week (the post “A Discouraging Word”), not every writer has that in him.

Technorati Tags: Writing, Publishing, Reading, Barry Lyga, Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl

Posted on Saturday, May 20th, 2006 at 12:01 am under Reading, Writing . Subscribe to responses: RSS 2.0 Comment Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.