Just two days after selling my first story, I was a “featured writer” at a public reading sponsored by the Pioneer Valley Writers Workshop as part of the Northampton Literary Walk.
I brought a couple of different stories and read the room to decide which one to read. I opted for whimsical over atmospheric and brooding. I’m a decent public speaker and not shy in front of crowds, so I wasn’t at all nervous going into it, but afterwards I had some of that same “Can this be real?” feeling that selling a story gave me. Reading after me were a couple of novelists with multiple award-winning books on their curricula vitae, and, holy crap, how did I end up standing up next to them?
I was sort of giddy, chatting with PVWW director Joy Baglio afterwards. I almost felt like I wanted to go get drunk to ground myself in my body again. (I didn’t get drunk. I went to a used bookstore around the corner instead.)
I’ve got to get used to this being a real writer thing. It's not exactly imposter syndrome. It's more ljke hang gliding and realizing OMG the ground is a thousand feet down and I'm pretty sure this thing can fly but, yeowww!
Photos are from PVWW's Facebook page.