I’ve barely scratched the surface on last night’s events. After Gayle Forman read, we got to listen to a bit from Daphne Grab’s upcoming novel, The Star Shack. It will be published under the pseudonym “Lila Castle.” (Daphne later confided that the book is “very commercial,” rather unlike her first novel, Alive and Well in Prague, New York. But I have a feeling it will be every bit as good, just in a different way.)
Look for The Star Shack in June.
Sarah Mlynowski followed Daphne, with a reading from her book Gimme a Call, which is out next month. As the topic was first drafts and revisions, she told us all that she absolutely hates writing first drafts and considers the process to be torture.
But she got lots of laughs — good, earnest, “we-love-you-Sarah” laughs — as she read from her first draft. This seemed to annoy Sarah.
“No laughing!” she said. “This is the bad draft!” Whatever, Sarah. Bad draft or not, you’re still way ahead of most of us.
She continued to tell us that, even if you’re trying to write about a character being absolutely miserable, you can’t make the reader miserable. This is a good point.
By the way, Sarah writes outlines for all of her books. Some of them are fifteen pages long!
In my next post later today, I’ll tell you about some more of the authors who spoke last night.