When I was 12 or 13 (so, over a decade ago), I wrote a novella about being a kid in a small coastal town in Western Australia. It was set during Christmas, and the kids' horrible relatives came up from the city to stay. Needless to say, it was quite bad, but it was ~20,000 words and I remain proud of the effort to this day, but for two reasons.
Reason #1 is because I finished a project so young, and reason #2 is because I managed to get the thing read by (a then relatively unknown) Markus Zusak. I met him at a thing my school sent me to for 'gifted writers' (or more likely kids who showed an interest), and at the end of the day he encouraged the class to send him their work.
I did, and forgot about it, but a month or so later he emailed me back. I don't remember specifically what he said (the email has been lost to the internet), but it was along the lines of 'congratulations for finishing a novel' and he went on to praise little details he would have picked up only by reading it. Of course, I'm sure he didn't go through it with a fine tooth comb, and nor did he say "my god this is brilliant", but he told me I had the guts to finish a project and send it out and that was worth bucket loads. It's encouragement I don't think I'll ever forget, and I hope I can meet him again one day to tell him how much his words have meant to me. I also had a weird feeling of pride on his behalf when The Book Thief became so popular.
Has anyone else had a similar experience with a big name author?
Reason #1 is because I finished a project so young, and reason #2 is because I managed to get the thing read by (a then relatively unknown) Markus Zusak. I met him at a thing my school sent me to for 'gifted writers' (or more likely kids who showed an interest), and at the end of the day he encouraged the class to send him their work.
I did, and forgot about it, but a month or so later he emailed me back. I don't remember specifically what he said (the email has been lost to the internet), but it was along the lines of 'congratulations for finishing a novel' and he went on to praise little details he would have picked up only by reading it. Of course, I'm sure he didn't go through it with a fine tooth comb, and nor did he say "my god this is brilliant", but he told me I had the guts to finish a project and send it out and that was worth bucket loads. It's encouragement I don't think I'll ever forget, and I hope I can meet him again one day to tell him how much his words have meant to me. I also had a weird feeling of pride on his behalf when The Book Thief became so popular.
Has anyone else had a similar experience with a big name author?