Erin Morgenstern is as warm, funny and engaging a speaker as you'd expect, judging from the sort of person who'd possess her talent for writing such magical, mind-blowingly original prose. I went to her talk/reading at Anderson's Bookshop in Naperville, IL on October 11, the night before the vice presidential debate - entertainment of a totally different sort. A disturbing, soul-destroying sort that makes me wish we owned a chipper/shredder so I could have thrown myself in head-first and be done with it.
The trip there was an agony: slow, interrupted by red lights every three minutes and, with the onset of winter, the challenge of navigating unfamiliar terrain in the growing dark. But it was worth every minute of the hour and a half it took to get down there: partially due to rush hour traffic and partially, well, my inability to follow instructions printed on paper combined with a lack of motivation to fire up the GPS. In other words, my own damn stubbornness.
Thanks to my lack of front row phobia, I was able to plop myself down practically in her lap, the perfect vantage point from which to film and photograph the poor woman. I tried to do it surreptitiously, keeping my crew down to four men carrying big, white umbrellas, toting my twelve cameras so I could change as needed. Despite what witnesses say, I honestly kept my elbowing and view obstruction to a minimum. I only hit three people directly in the eye and the hospital has them listed in good, but guarded, condition. Nothing an email card can't make up for, if the temporary restraining order allows for it.
As it turned out, I was able to get some really kick arse footage of her answering a few questions. The first of them I'm posting today is about her advice on writing, for those eager to, like her, pursue their dream of selling their first novel manuscript in three weeks, shop the film rights around immediately after and become so successful it makes me want to vomit.
But she deserves every damn bit of it. Hope you enjoy.
