Literary Meeting

A few weeks ago, had a chance to meet Frankie (aka SM Blooding aka Solar), founder of the Young Adult Novel Workshop on writing.com. Airdale, also a member of the forum, invited her to fly from Colorado and spend a few days in New Jersey. She offered other members of the forum to join them for a literary meeting and since I live in the same area, I accepted immediately. It's not every day I get to meet other writers in person. I had met Airdale once before over a sandwich at a deli, and I was looking forward to see her again and to meet Frankie to find out if she looks anything like her Avatar. :D

I felt excited all week, as if I was going to meet a celebrity. Frankie has written a dozen books, started a very successful review forum which I can't rave enough about, and runs a group blog which instantly became one of my favorites. I also had a chance to peruse one of Airdale's chapters on the forum and I was impressed by the quality of her writing. It's great to meet authors before they become "too" famous. ;)

We met at Barnes and Noble on a Sunday evening and ordered coffee. Don't ask me what Frankie ordered; it was a mile long! We couldn't find any table in the coffeeshop area, so we settled on the floor in the writer's section. Too bad for anyone looking for a dictionary that evening. :)

We talked for hours about writing, reviewing, character development and real life stories, moving slightly once in a while to allow a customer to access a thesaurus or a dictionary. Ahhh! It's so refreshing to be able to talk about all this with someone. We had the privilege to hear Frankie's "real" vampire story live. It's even better than her blog version, with added details and facial expression. LOL! I'm still laughing, just thinking about it.

We found out that Frankie was an adept tarot reader, and Airdale asked her to do a reading for her. She didn't have her set with her, but she bought another one on the spot. I must admit that the reading she gave me helped me see things from a different perspective, which is always good. The King of Cups especially intrigued me. It represents a man who is very supportive of my creativity; someone very close to me, like a husband or a father. I automatically ruled out my husband. LOL! In my mind, he's not supportive of my writing. But then, it got me thinking. Maybe he is supportive and I'm the one keeping him out. I'm still pondering on it... Some other things she said made me widen my eyes and think, How could she possibly know all this about me? I've only just met her a few hours ago.

I had such a great time getting to know Frankie and Airdale better. Airdale has been on the forum much longer than I have, and she gave me useful tips about giving and receiving reviews. I would have never dared inviting someone I hardly knew to come over for a week, but she did. I thank her for that. Now I can testify: Frankie doesn't actually "EEEEEEEKs" in reality. LOL! And she doesn't look anything like her Avatar.

I wish everyone else from the YA forum had been there. We are all so different in writing styles, backgrounds and personalities, but we have at least one thing in common: our passion for writing.