Peter Orullian and Brandon Sanderson Book Signing

Wow, what an excellent event!  Both of these excellent authors were vacationing in Idaho and decided to take a 'break' from that and do a book signing. 

I learned to respect Peter a little bit more as he admits he gets up at 3:30am to write.  O.k.  You get the uber dedicated writer award!  Wow.  Respect the man.

Not only does Peter write, but he's also an accomplished musician.  Check out his site.

Peter signed my copy of his book, which I add Amazon nearly didn't get it delivered on time.  It arrived two hours before I had to leave to get to the book signings.  To my chagrin, it was on sale at Barns and Noble for about the same price.  All that worry for nothing.  Oh well.

I learned some truly great things from them.  These are of course paraphrasing.

Peter:  Write true to yourself.  Write what you want and what you're interested in the most.

Summed up, Peter related his story about how he wrote horror to meet the needs of his agent, but turns out nothing sold.  Then he just pursued his interest writing epic fantasy and things worked out.

Brandon:  Never give up.  The vast majority of people who want to be an author just end up giving up.  If you persist you'll eventually make it.  He also personalized his book for me with the remembrance that with every book he's written he's wanted to give up as some point, but he didn't.  Stay the course.

I also learned from him recently (just had to add this) that when he writes first drafts he just writes them.  Then he goes back and fixes everything, puts in his 'show don't tell' elements, etc. etc.... which is good to hear because my first drafts are just horrible.  Obviously the timing/pacing is way off.  Even though it's obvious, it's still good to hear that someone who's a most amazing writer still has horrid first drafts and works up from there.

In answer to the question I placed to them both Brandon said the thing he learned the most in writing was to write that second draft.  Revise, revise, revise.  He didn't want to and there was always that next novel pulling for his attention.  I think I can recognize that pull.  There are so many stories I want to write, but I haven't the time, I need to go back and make novel #1 perfect first.
Peter's answer was of course, staying true to you and writing what you really want.  Oh, and your first 1 million words don't count, so keep writing.  You know the old adage, don't let your own lack of experience stop you, because unless you keep going you'll never get the experience you need.

Gentlemen, thank you for lending me your evening.  You are awesome.  Bravo!
To your families who had to be without you during your vacationing time, thank you for your sacrifice, you are equally awesome.