The Other Side.

Meeting with authors is always interesting to me. As a book lover, I find myself asking many questions about the stories I read. How did so-and-so come up with such an interesting idea? How can some small idea spark such a big story? and so on. I've taken writing classes. . . some in high school, some in college. . . lets just say I'm more of a reader than a writer, at this point anyway. I've always thought it would be incredible to have my name on the by-line or on the cover of a novel but. . we'll just stick with the I'm more of a reader thing for now.

I think what I found most interesting, with all of the authors we got to speak to, was their obvious passion for what they do. That idea of mine that it would be incredible to have my name on a by-line, well you could see that feeling in them as each of them were speaking. I wasn't surprised by this in the least bit because, why would you spend all of this time writing something if its not something you're passionate about? 

I also found it interesting that, although they are all writers, they all do things and think about things differently. Not that I thought they were all going to feel the same way about all of our questions, but sometime it was interesting to hear that one writer can think of something in one way and another the complete opposite. Even though, ultimately they are doing the same thing-- trying to get published. 

Lastly, the thing I found most interesting is that in the publishing process, the writer doesn't really have the "final say" or all of the power to make his or her work exactly the way they want it. As each of the writers spoke about this it made more and more sense as to why others had the ability to change the writers work, but I never really thought that the writer would have to give up rights on his or her own work. But hey, if they got to make all the decisions, all these other people in the process would be pointless and out of a job.