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

So I’m up here in Oregon now, in a little town on the coast (where they have cards in the hotel rooms saying, “What to do in case of a tsunami”–excuse me? I live in the desert. We don’t know from tsunamis). I came all this way for the last novel workshop being offered by my writing and the-business-of writing heroes Dean Wesley Smith and Kristine Kathryn Rusch. There are twelve of us novelists packed in a hot room for hours and hours, our breaths and body heat steaming up the windows while it rains outside, and it’s so much fun I want to (you’re expecting me to say cry) eat.

We all eat like pigs during these things. It’s required. Because you can’t sit there all day and night critiquing each other’s work with anything less than a full-on sugar trance. So we’re popping peanut M&M’s, Reese’s peanut butter cups, mini-Twixes, mondo slices of carrot cake–no fruits or vegetables of any kind because that would just be wrong. Occasionally we send out for Chinese or Thai, just to feel like we’re eating real food. I come back to my room at night feeling this four-inch coating of gunk on my teeth.

It’s really great.

Anyway, one of the things I love about coming up here is I get to see all the wonderfully imaginative, fun, and riveting books people are writing. It makes me both giddy and jealous. I wish I had an extra three lifetimes so I could read all the things already on my list, and still have room for all the new work being done by these fabulous writers. My 50-novel challenge is too puny to get the job done. I need to double it, at least.

It takes a long time for a book to be published. The writing of it takes time, of course, then then there’s revising it, and eventually you make your match with an agent and do even more revisions. And then one day an editor says those three incredible words, “I want it!” and from there it will still take another 12-18 months before your book is actually on a shelf somewhere. So it won’t do me any good to tell you now who these people are, but trust me–they’re coming. I’ll alert you as the day draws nearer. Otherwise it’s like telling someone on the day of conception, “I’m pregnant!” People get tired of waiting. “For heaven’s sake–didn’t you have that baby yet?”

But up here in Oregon we’re all checking out the sonograms. And let me tell you, these are some very photogenic babies.

Technorati Tags: Writing, Publishing, M & M’s

Posted on Monday, May 8th, 2006 at 1:44 am under Chocolate, Writing . Subscribe to responses: RSS 2.0 Comment Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.