This weekend was my very first author panel. I was fortunate to be one newbie among great authors I've followed and admired for years: Marissa Doyle, Kate Milford, Deva Fagan, and Ellen Booream, all of whom participate in the Enchanted Inkpot blog for fantasy authors and enthusiasts. I was excited as I drove to Tatnuck Booksellers in Westborough, MA on the first beautiful day in over a week; that plus the pre-scheduled Rapture was enough to make any indoor speaker a little nervous. But the store is gorgeous, welcoming, and totally stocked (and if you've never been there, you are missing out!), my fellow authors were all beautiful, erudite and wonderful, and I was thrilled to see fellow Elevensie author, Kim Harrington sporting her new Spring haircut (which is devastatingly cute) and awesome book blogger, Gail Yates, from Ticket to Anywhere! What could be better?

This:

I'd prepared for the panel by repeating my segment about mythology, legend and folklore in fantasy over and over in the car ride down and I'd prepared for the signing afterward by bringing bookmarks and my trusty silver pen so I'd have something to do while the other authors signed books, knowing mine wouldn't be out for another month-plus. I was not prepared for the professional-quality talks that the others gave (with notes and everything!) about character and history, plotting and genre-busting; I was so enthralled I forgot that I was supposed to be speaking too! (Note: me forgetting to speak is like Homer Simpson forgetting to say "D'oh!") But nothing prepared me for what I saw as we begun organizing our signing tables:

On the cart, along with everyone else's hardcovers and paperbacks, were brand new copies of Luminous.

I stopped. It couldn't be... but it was! An entire shelf-load of hardcover books with my cover art. I stared, actually gaping, and Ellen asked, "Is this the first time you've seen your baby?" and I nodded and got a hug. Congratulations abounded. I grabbed one and held it up. I couldn't believe it. My book. MY BOOK. On a shelf. Here. In my hand. EARLY! A ton of them waiting to be signed. "I don't even have these yet!" I laughed. "I've got to meet whoever works here because they've got connections!" It blew my mind, which would explain my first reaction to finding a stack of my own hardcovers was less dignified author and more like a giddy kid with Lego blocks:

Talking with Gail afterwards, she even lead me into the store itself where I got to see the one thing I've been waiting all my life to behold: MY BOOK! On a shelf! MY BOOK! In a bookstore.

*sniff*

So, although Luminous isn't due to come out yet for another month or so, I know a place where you can get signed hardcover copies before anyone else (even me!) ;-) Click here! But I'd love to see you at my *actual* launch signing, which is at another fabulous indie bookstore, The Odyssey Bookstore in South Hadley, on Wednesday, July 6th from 7-8pm followed by another signing at yet *another* fabulous indie store, Pandemonium Books & Games in Cambridge, MA, on Wednesday, July 13th, from 7-9pm, right before ReaderCon! I can't wait!!!

But this, here? This was a lifelong dream come true.

*sniff twice*

Yesterday, I got into a conversation about fears. With all this talk of the Rapture*, I guess it was in the air. The whole thing started with an unfortunate incident of someone finding dead chipmunks after their lawn had been sprayed and someone else mentioning how they had snakes die at their house but that chipmunks were cuter than snakes and since she was afraid of snakes, it didn't bother her has much. She admitted she couldn't even look at worms; they way they moved freaked her out. Her son admitted he didn't like snakes at all and I said snakes didn't nother me, it was scorpions that weirded me out: they didn't look like they should be real, just some movie-magic creature made out of crabs and snakes and worms and spiders. They shouldn't be real. A guy said that he'd almost gotten a pet scorpion. I shivered. We started talking about heights and close spaces, loud noises and the dark.

Fear is a great motivation. If you don't want to do something, fear can quickly change your mind! Threats of health, death, or generally wigginess can be enough to get a lazy butt off the couch, change your eating habits, get thee to a gym, or even propose to your girlfriend. Fear means that the thing you fear means more to you than the thing you don't want to do. Fear trumps.** It turns inaction into action and keeps it running for as long as the adrenal rush holds. This very thing is used a lot in movies, in music, on TV reality shows and cable dramas, in religion, in discipline, and in work and education. Grades are fear. Tests are fear. Cutbacks are fear. Unemployment is fear. It should be no surprise that a great tool in literature is fear.

Here's a great litmus test for your characters: think of the thing that they fear most in life, and then make sure to do that to them. It's motivation. It's character depth. It's empathy and reaction and instant action and resonance. We, the readers, understand what it means to be afraid of something and we wonder what would we do if we had to face it. Seeing that happen to characters *is* a concrete show of character; quite simply what is this person made of? What will be the instantaneous reaction and what will shine through? Facing a fear also preempts change and the journey of a character from one state to the next requires change. Every plot depends on it. A total freak-out guarantees it.

So here I am encouraging you to sadistically, maliciously, scare the !@#$%^&* out of your characters and your story will be the better for it. Can't think of one?*** Share some fears and let your fellow authors borrow them! Come on...

What are you afraid of? ;-)

* I'm really not sure why everyone's getting all excited about it. It was a decent book and a terrible movie, but still...that was, like, twenty years ago.
** As opposed to "Fear Trump" which is what I'd say if I could take his candidacy seriously. Which I don't.
*** If you want a great list of fears, I'd recommend NEED by Carrie Jones and PEEPS by Scott Westerfeld if you'd like some good suggestions of where to start (or gain some phobias of your own)!