There is a trepidation that comes when you are about to meet a person who has been so influential in your life and that person doesn’t know it. A mixture of pure excitement, nervousness, and an over whelming fear of making a fool of yourself takes over. And then an oddity occurs. You walk into the room and sit down, and the person who, I can only say has been like the Wizard of OZ to me, steps out from behind the curtain. The person I admire and thought all knowing and perfect was unmistakably HUMAN, mixed with oddities and quirks (and a few opinions I don't agree with) and yet none of my trepidation left, for my respect for the author Orson Scott Card endures.
Late June I took what is called “Uncle Orson’s Writing Workshop,” at UVSU. As I wrote in January 2010, Orson Scott Card was the author who began my journey and my love for reading. I clung to his novels all through my teen years, not reading any other author. When I did finally branch into different genres and authors, Card was the one I pitted them against. Did they have his style, his ability to use words in such a way as though images and characters sprung from the pages? Could another author keep my interest?
Obviously they could keep my interest, and I found that every author has a unique voice. My passion for literature grew, but it was Card that began the whole process. And now I was sitting in a conference room listening to him speak to well over 60 writers who were all looking for him to guide them down his path.
I could write about all the tidbits of information on writing he gave us, but I feel as though that would be stealing his information. Instead I would like to write here about the things he said that gave me hope.
1- Forget everything you were taught in school on how to write. It took me two years after my Master’s degree to write anything good. You each have a unique voice, use it.
This, for me, was such a delight to hear. My style of writing has never been very academic or elite and I have paid for this in my educational undertakings. But to hear him say this made my heart leap. It wasn’t a matter of a rigged rule on how to write, but the idea that your voice is important and it is in the refining of that voice that each story will take shape.
2- Ideas are cheap.
So many of my friends have ideas for stories. I have heard the telling of idea upon idea, and yet I have never seen a written word on a page from these ideas (minus the rare exception). So if “Ideas are cheap,” action must be priceless. I have written a few of my stories down and it is now high time that I kick my butt in gear and begin sending them off to publishers.
3- You are a fellow skeptic, and I mean that as a compliment.
On the last day of the workshop, Card agreed to sign books and take a few photos with people. Standing in line, seeing all the others with there crisp hard cover additions, I stared at the two books in my hand. As I placed the books in front of Card I told him I was sorry they were a bit bruised. I handed him the mass-market additions of Ender’s Game and Xenocide I have held onto since I was 13. As he signed them, he said to me that I was a skeptic and that this was a good thing.
For eighteen years I have held onto Cards novels. And I am sure that they will continue to be in my possession well into the future. And as he said, I am a skeptic, always questioning the words placed before me, even his. But may I say, I cherish each and every question those words make me answer.
