A week and a night late, but here's my night with Ms. Weis

So, barreling over the subject of my seemingly long absence (seems long to me, maybe not to anyone else, and which I blame on long work hours strategically placed to give me no time in the morning and leave me tired when I come home ;P ), we’ll dive promptly into the visit/talk/dinner with Margaret Weis on February 14, 2007.

I got sick that night. A nasty cold that left me wanting something soft to eat, because I was hungry after a day of work wherein I got out late as well. I settled on a small hamburger from Wendy’s. My dad and I ate in the parking lot of the library where she would be speaking. We went inside and my writing group leader introduced me to her. The WG’s husband got out of his seat nd gave it to me, a very nice and gentlemanly thng to do as it was a comfy cushioned chair in the front row.

Spoiler: I am ecstatic that Keifer Sutherland will be voicing my favoritest DragonLance character in the whole wide world, Raistlin, in the animated movie they’re currently working on. I’m also keen on the other actors she mentioned, although now I don’t remember who they were specifically (just that at the time, I thought it was awesome).

(Raistlin was my old school fangirl subject. Can you tell I’m wearing a mental cheesy grin as I type?)

So she spoke about how the DragonLance series began, and the new developments, and her production company, and then she answered questions and signed books. I brought two anthologies with stories she’d written (about Raistlin) and she signed the title page of each. One of my group members also took a picture.

At the dinner afterward, the two women in my group who basically lead it, made me sit next to Ms. Weis, not that I minded of course, and I was my usual introverted self, but I did ask a few questions. My sister sat on my other side and she’s much more extraverted, so I tend to think she’s more memorable. She certainly had people at the table cracking up.

But overall, it was a good night. I was feeling less and less well as the night wore on, and was sick until…Tuesday, although the cough is lingering and my ears still won’t fully unblock (yes it’s that kind of cold, where you wake up one morning to find everyone’s voices ever so slightly muffled and your own oddly distant).

She said one very memorable thing, though (it was all enjoyable, but this stuck in my mind):

“[I] Write every day, because it’s so easy not to.”

I smiled to myself. I know all too well that feeling. She gets up and writes every morning from 7:30 to 11 or so.

When I wasn’t working, I could get on the computer at 8:30 or 9, and be there until 4, 5 or 6 o’clock, but recently there wasn’t much in the way of writing progress. It was floating online, blogging about something random, etc. that sort of dedication is admirable.

Now that I work, it’s only on days like today, when I work from 3 to 7 p.m. that I might get on the computer. I still jot down quick scenes, and think/plan out stories in my head. Even last night I was playing on a rework of an opening for a story I wrote (read: novel I began) in 6th or 7th grade. Probably all 20-50 pages of text are crap if I read them now, but it was an accomplishment to write as much as I did back then, and I still like those core characters, so maybe one day I write a better story resolving around them. But I’m not writing like I should.

Every writer is different, and I think some can pull off not writing every single day, but I think that habit can only help.