Monday, July 11, 2011

Who Said Writing is Easy?

Greetings from Atlanta Georgia and the ICRS. I've walked a good six miles today according to my pedometer. That's a lot of steps and the day's not over.

This is a wonderful show. I've never seen so many books and gifts and movies and music available in one place. This is a brand new experience for me as an author and I'm loving every minute of it. So much is going on that it's hard to write about it all.

The neatest experience has been meeting some of the people at Charisma who publish our books, market them, and do just about everything else. It's been such a pleasure to see them and put names with faces. I have a book signing tomorrow at 10 AM in our booth. Saw the covers of Lena's book and Jillian's on display and some of the others on exhibit on the book shelves.

Never did I imagine so much went into getting my book into print. I always thought you just wrote it and that was it. Wow, have I learned differently. Edits and galleys were terms I'd heard authors use, but had no idea the work involved. If not for Lori and her expertise, I wouldn't make it. She makes my writing so much stronger with her suggestions. Then when galleys come in, I quickly learned how easy it is to overlook a mistake that needed to be corrected and wasn't.
On top of that, no one had prepared me for the flood of joy that came with actually seeing that first book in print. This writing journey has been one great experience, and it proves that you can teach an old dog new tricks.

3 comments:

Andrea said...

Oh, I'm so envious that you're in Atlanta and meeting staff from Charisma House. I couldn't swing going to ICRS because I went to TX to Tracie Peterson's writers' retreat last February and I'm going to the Gideon Media Conference in NC next month and then, of course, is the wonderful ACFW Conference in St. Louis. The only ICRS I've attended was many years ago in Orlando. It was hot and busy and tried in vain to keep up with my agent at the time, Joyce Hart. She was like the Energizer Bunny! Anyway, have fun, Martha!!! I'll meet you in St. Louis in September!!

Jillian Kent said...

Hi Martha,
You lucky woman. I've never been to ICRS. Sounds like a lot of fun. Do you know where it will be next year?
I've also never been to the Gideon Media Conference. Andrea, I thought that was the week after Blueridge. Am I thinking of something else?
Anyone else every been to these events? Glad you're enjoying yourself Martha!

Andrea said...

Here is a link to the Gideon conference for anyone who is interested.
http://gideonfilmfestival.com/Novel%20Retreat/index.cfm