Into a Writer's Head

Following the leader...

This morning Mom, Aunt and I went to the annual Sisterhood brunch hosted by the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle. This is our second year attending, and after last year I learned my lesson and encouraged many of my friends to join us. So thanks to my nudging, we managed to fill almost an entire table simply with my friends and family.
This year's guest speaker was chick lit author Jennifer Weiner. Jennifer appears very unassuming at first, but when you put her in front of a mic she has the whole room in her thrall. She regalled us with the stories of how she began writing, of her family and their interactions, and even of her Nana's appearance as an extra in the movie In Her Shoes.
As a writer, I was very excited to hear her speak. I love listening to published authors talk about writing and the road to publication. If the author is funny too? Even better. So I wasn't disappointed at all by her stories.
I did, however, have to laugh when three of my friends informed me I was their "spokeswoman" today, since none of us actually brought one of Jennifer's books to be signed.
"Spokeswoman?" I asked.
"Yeah, we want to go get her to sign a program or something. But you need to be the leader since you're the writer."
Ah yes, I'm the writer, and therefore I'm the only one capable of stepping up to a woman and saying hi. Ha! So we stood in line, politely informed the volunteer selling books that I only wanted to say hello to the author, and moved along. Finally, it was our turn. I introduced myself to Jennifer, explained I wanted to say hi because I'm also a writer, which lead to the inevitable, "Well, what do you write?" I gave her my brief shpiel, she nodded politely and smiled. Then I introduced my groupies, who gave a lovely chorus of hellos in unison. At this point I'm pretty sure Jennifer was wondering where the bodyguard the Federation had promised her had disappeared to. For her sake, we quickly left the table, and moved along to more entertaining conversations.
Looking back, I thought about what turned women who are normally fairly outgoing and comfortable, so insecure. Then it hit me. They don't know writers like I do. These friends are all readers, and they view writers as having reached a level of celebrity status. They don't really understand that writers are (for the most part) fairly normal people.
This was really driven home when, during the question and answer session, a woman stood up to the microphone, and informed Jennifer and the crowd how much she loved Good in Bed. In fact, she loved it so much she emailed Jennifer. And wouldn't you know it? Jennifer replied within two days. Oh my goodness! The author responded! This woman was so in awe of the fact that Jennifer had taken time out of her day to respond to her email. It really hit me then, how people view us writers. I think it was an "Ah ha" moment, similar to Christina's from last week. It's that moment when you realize that what you view as normal, others view as special.
And let's be honest, I still get a thrill when I email a fellow author about something, and she responds. I think I needed that reminder today, as I came home to fewer hours than planned and 5 pages still to write (and yes, I finished them with plenty of time to spare). I needed the reminder that one day, that will be me up on that stage, talking to 600 women about my journey. It will be me, responding to the email of a reader and giving them that special warm feeling for the rest of the day. It will be my turn to make the crowd laugh so hard they cry.
It will be my turn in the spotlight.
One day.
Soon.

Labels: Jewish musings, writing

posted by Erin @ 7:54 PM