Reading Salon

Friday night, my friend Heather hosted a Reading Salon. Basically, a group of her writing friends got together to read some of their current writing to each other. The idea behind the Reading Salon is to become more comfortable with reading our work so that when we’re asked to do a reading we’re not going into full panic mode since we already have this experience this behind us. There were six of us, and I was the fifth person to read.

I brought my friend Sarah, who is working on her first novel. This was her first time sharing her writing with people she didn’t know so she was pretty nervous! But I think she enjoyed the experience, even though her heart was racing for awhile after the reading ended.

We heard some fantastic snippets of stories. Some writing samples were very different from others but we discovered that even with the differences, there were some similar threads that tied each story together.

The best part of all was just spending time with like-minded people. As I mentioned on Sunday in my thankfulness post, it’s always refreshing to spend time with people who think like me. It’s also inspiring and the next day I made some progress on one of the stories that I read from. That always feels fantastic!

Or maybe I should say that the best part was the food. She had a wide array of different snacks to choose from, including strawberries and whipped cream and a fantastic, aged white cheddar that I’m still dreaming about! I hadn’t eaten much that day, so this was a wonderful feast!

After the others left, Sarah and I stayed behind to chat with Heather. It’s amazing how quickly time goes by when you’re having a good time. Before we knew it, it was the wee hours of morning and we were all wiping away tears of exhaustion as Sarah and I walked out the door.

I can’t wait for the next one!