Visit a Store Archive

As a bookseller who is also a mostly unpublished writer, I crave contact with other serious writers. One of my main tasks at Paulina Springs Books is booking our author events, which means I get to meet or have contact with all the authors who come through here. You would think this would be the perfect opportunity for me to connect with other writers. But, for the most part, I don’t tell the authors I meet that I’m a writer. This is partly because my job is to promote them, not myself, and partly out of shyness. No, actually, it’s more out of fear.

What is there to be afraid of? Well, plenty. The other day, a very nice author, Shelley Houston, came back into the store to visit. I’d felt comfortable enough with her to share that I’m working on a book (actually, it’s several books, but saying you’re working on a group of interconnected books is a little much to explain to a new acquaintance), so this time, she asked me how my writing is going. This is why I usually don’t tell authors that I write. If they don’t ask me how my writing is going, I feel ignored. If they do ask me, I panic, hem and haw, look at the floor, shuffle my feet, say “It’s . . . going,” and find myself fresh out of words to describe my progress. I must come off like one of those wannabe writers who never actually sits down and writes, when the truth is, I spend huge chunks of my life writing, and quite seriously. I just can’t seem to sum up my progress to a near-stranger in a minute or two. My mind goes blank, and I forget to mention any accomplishments, like the short pieces I’ve had published lately, or the fact that I did finish one of my books this winter. I didn’t feel any accomplishment when I got to the end of that book, only grief and loss, so I don’t feel in the least like talking about it. (more…)