Hello from ALA

My alarm went off this morning at the ridiculous hour of 3:30 a.m. and I was on the road at 5:00 heading to the Boston Convention and Exposition Center for the Mid-Winter Meeting of the American Library Association.  The reason I wanted to get here so early was to hear author Elizabeth Gilbert speak.  If that's all I do all weekend, it was worth it.  What a wonderful talk!  And the questions the librarians asked afterward were very good - sometimes audience questions leave a lot to be desired.

Gilbert talked about how daunting it was to write another book after the wild success of "Eat, Pray, Love".  Her newest book "Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage" came out just last week and is in the collection of the Freedom Public Library.  Her 500 page first draft was ready to send out to her publisher at deadline when she suddenly realized it was "all wrong."  Having been raised to follow through on commitments, she agonized over what to do. After days of anxiety, she had a nightmare in which she was on her knees at her publisher's begging for her life back, which made her realize she had to tell her editor that the book wasn't ready and she didn't have any idea when or even IF she would be able to send anything.  Devastated by defeat, she took six months and immersed herself in her garden and did not try to write.  Then, at last, the first line of the book came to her and in five weeks she had written an entirely new book, which shares nothing in common with her first draft other than the characters.  She said that if she had forced herself to write again immediately after she realized her first draft was bad, it would have made a defeat on top of a defeat and probably would have ended her writing career right there. 

She spoke of how common it is for people to assume that since she wrote "Eat, Pray, Love" she must not only have her life together but she must also be able to help other people put their lives together, something she says is just SO not true.  An example of this was a brief encounter with a woman who said, "I know you only have a minute to talk to me, so I will keep this short: Should I leave my husband?"

I learned at this talk that Elizabeth Gilbert's sister is also a well-known author, Catherine Gilbert Murdock, who writes young adult novels including the wonderful "Dairy Queen" which we read in our teen book group two summers ago. 

I am looking forward to hearing Al Gore speak this afternoon!  That's all for now - off to the exhibits.