I am Inspired!

As most adults will do, I was following twitter last night (judge not!) and came across power-agent Janet Reid's (@Janet_Reid) message about a must read novel by Veronica Roth (@veronicaroth).

If that's not an endorsement, nothing is! So I found my way to Veronica's site and started to read.

Man, I was stuck on her site for a good thirty minutes. In my life, that's a long time (it's like dog years). She was recently signed and her book will be published in May of 2011 (Divergent).

Two things stuck out:
(1) Her blog is written in a way that is easy to follow, her humor comes through, and it keeps me engaged. There is a profound level of honesty that makes you feel at ease. I suspect that her novel will be written the same way, which implies that I will have a hard time setting it down.
(2) There is a generosity in her site that is inspirational. She shares everything about her process in there. She has pictures of her signing her contract, when she received her arcs... it's just a great story and one that really got me happy.

It reminded me of a passage from Stephen King's book "On Writing." He tells us about the day that he got the call from his agent. The call that informed him that Carrie's paperback rights were picked up for something like $350k. This was his first book. Advances of that sort were unheard of. Add the financial desperation of his life at the time, and then his very honest and human reaction to this news... ("Can you say that number again?" as he slid to the floor) that was such a heartfelt moment that I found a bit... ahh, well... you know... an eyelash got caught in my eye. Yeah, that's what it was. Leave me alone, will you!

Here's a classic line from her blog:

This is what I keep thinking to myself: My NAME is on it! MY name. And it's like...a thing! That you can HOLD! In your HANDS!

How can you not root for her? To know that your story will be read by others must be an out of body experience. The fact that she shares this type of information is inspirational and is the carrot. The possibility that we will one day get that call as well.

Here's to all of us who want to be like Veronica! I hope it's an instant best seller. I know I'll get a copy.