Every Author's Dream

JANICE: Here is Hazel who is ten years old and a "great reader," according to her grandmother who keeps her supplied with books, including two of mine. She is also being a good model for her cousin, Athena (a name to live up to).

Hazel is the kind of reader every author dreams of - intent and absorbed in the story. Look closely and you can see she is reading Anna Maria's Gift, my latest chapter book. Notice how lovingly she holds it. She even looks like the girl on the cover. Hopefully as she reads, Hazel will become Anna Maria.
Behind her on the couch is another book, Sophie's War, a historical novel set in Comfort, Texas, during the Civil War.
Thank you for being a great reader, Hazel. Now I can go back to work on a first draft of I, Nefertiti with renewed vigor.

My author-reader story is quite different from an experience Sinclair Lewis had after publishing Main Street back in the 1920s. He was crossing the Atlantic on the Queen Elizabeth for a vacation in Europe. As he strolled the deck, Lewis spied a woman sitting in a deck chair, reading his latest book. Excitedly he hid behind a post to watch her reaction. Suddenly she slammed it shut, stepped over to the rail, and tossed it into the ocean! Every author's nightmare.

As for Hazel, not only is she a reader, she wants to be a writer. And she doesn't just want to be, she is a writer. This summer she is attending a summer writing camp and already submitting her work for publication!

Next comes acceptance or rejection. Acceptance is glorious, but rejection can be good, too. To find out how, read my blog, "Good and Bad Rejections," posted on June 27, 2010.