Halo's random thoughts and diary

Storytime: meeting my inspiration

So I have a little storytime but I don't want to name the author even though I have all amazing things to say about her.

This author has over 11,000 reviews on one of her books. She has 2 books out currently and one of them was on the New York Times bestsellers list.

I met her when I was in high school. I believe it may have been about 2015. I was a sophomore I think. I went to this writer's conference where they had wonderful best selling authors give classes about how to write. When I say I packed multiple notebooks and had a pen behind my ear and the whole bang. I was so ready. This was my dream and at the time my dream was to have a book out and published.

She had a panel and taught a course. I asked so many questions and I could tell she was intrigued by the youngest high schooler there. I asked her questions after the course and it was time for lunch. Normally the authors sit with their fellow authors and mingle, socialize, talk about their lessons.

She wanted to sit with me and answer my questions. At the time I couldn't fathom why a best selling author would want to sit with a geeky teenager who's asking any and every question about writing. Couldn't process it. But she helped me come up with the idea for a story.

I ended up following her on Instagram and hadn't talked to her in years after that. My mom before she passed when my novella came out said she sent her a message about how she inspired it. The novella tanked and I was a laughing stock around my town.

I didn't want to message her or face her that I could've written such a story with such awful grammar and called it an actual book. It was just not my best work to say the least.

I messaged her last week telling her that I'm working on my first actual novel "Dear future best friend". I asked if she could explain the process of how you would go about getting published.

She was so defeated. She said that she can't help me because her recent manuscript has gotten declined twice and she doesn't know how to proceed writing? I was shocked first off that she remembered me and messaged back, but that she sounded like she had given up. She made the New York Times bestsellers list! How could my inspiration be defeated like this?

I explained about my book getting all bad reviews and that I didn't feel like I could show my face. I told her that she was the greatest author not just for her writing but for the person she is offering advice to a young high schooler with just a notepad, pen and a dream. I told her she couldn't give up. That I need to read her next work.

She said I made her cry in a good way tonight. She answered back saying she swelled on what I said and got reinspired to keep trying.

So I inspired my author inspiration?

This gave me inspiration to write. I told her one day I'd be attending one of her author events with my published novel and I'd have her to thank.