A few months ago, I was approached by another author and asked if I’d like to be a featured reader at a writer’s group. I agreed. On June 8th, I attended that meeting. It was mostly made up of other writers, all much older than me. But that was fine. I was just happy for a chance to read the first chapter of Silver Rose out loud.
I already knew from the author hosting the meeting that there were three featured authors. What I wasn’t expecting was that there was also an open mic available for anyone else to read. In between the featured readers, members of the audience would get up and read their own work. At least one of these readers was a featured author last month.
While I had prepared my first chapter, most of the other readers had decided on poetry. This surprised me, because poetry isn’t really my strong suit. I appreciate poetry, but I’ve never wanted to be a poet. I’m more visual when it comes to poetry. I need to read it myself to get any meaning out of it. I don’t get that from someone reading poetry to me.
When it was my turn, I stood and read from Silver Rose. I started off nervous, but I got into a groove and finished strong. Relieved to be done, I thanked my audience and started to walk away. Before I could take more than two steps, they started to bombard me with questions. They wanted to know if this was set in the real world, how old my main character Penelope was, and why I had included magic. I explained that this was a fantasy story, so no, it was not set in the real world, Penelope is sixteen, and part of the plot involves her learning to control her magic.
They listened intently, some of them even said that their children and grandchildren would love my book. At the end, they applauded me and said that it was accomplishment for someone as young as me to be an author.