First of all, I’m a writer- not a very good one quite yet, but I’m working hard to improve, so when I heard that a FAMOUS author was visiting my obscure middle school, in the middle of Nekoosa, Wisconsin I was more than overjoyed. Then, my teacher,Mr.P***s whose always believed in my ability to become an author, suggested a chat with MR.ROLAND SMITH. Startled at the news, my heart started performing the strangest acrobats, tapping my rib-cage reassuringly as if to say,”You can pass out now.” I waited throughout the whole day for news, hoping for this one-in-a lifetime-chance, but was disapointed to hear he was too busy (which I understand) to speak with me. I sighed, trudging despondantly back to the second-to-last class of the day. Unfortunately, I’m extremely stubborn when i want to be, and the hope that I believed dead refused to be supressed. It kept creeping up on me, and was a distracting, impatient thing. So I decided I was going to talk to him, regardless of what I had to do to get there. Clutching my manuscript, I intrupted my tech-ed teacher during a lecture in the last class of the day, and flashed the papers at him like they were some kind of official document. “Mr.P***s wanted me to give something to the author,” I said confidently. My teacher nodded and replied that I could go anytime I needed to. Wow. That was easy. Wary of teachers prowling in the hallways who could demand a pass from me, and who might think I was some sort of freaky-stalker-kid for skipping class to run after a celebrity, I slunk casually into teh gymnasium. Roland Smith was at the head of the room, and now told the younger children that “This is my computer,” he patted his head, and they mimicked him,” and this is my keyboard.” He held up a pen. I awkwardly knelt on a mat by the wall, eyeing the clock as if it was about to burst into flames. A woman approached me, and asked what I was doing. I sheepishly muttered that I wanted to talk to the author, and expected that she’d send me away, but instead she bit her lip and told me to stay where I was. I waited. My hope transformed into anticipation, spread its newly acquired wings and prepared to fly. When the little kids got in line for autographs, I snuck into the back, so obviously taller than the other kids,and shyly when my turn cam and everyone else had left, asked Mr.Roland Smith if I could speak with him. He grinned, suddenly remembering something, and said,”So you’re that 8th grader I’ve been hearing so much about.” I wasn’t suprised, knowing Mr.P***s had spoken with him earlier, but I was very flattered. Oh My GOSH! I realized randomly. I’m actually here! I handed over the manuscript, to which he replied that he couldn’t read my work with it unfinished and open to the world, it would make him too nervous. I nervously stuttered,”Well, its not very good…” but he glanced up at me in a strange, almost startled way. “I feel the same way when some one’s reading my work. It just never feels good enough, and I’m always really nervous to hear their opinion.” He then asked what the title was, but I admitted I didn’t have one and attempted to excuse myself for it, but oddly enough, his grew even more approving and more suprised as he said. “That means your a writer!! Lots of people say they’d write a book if only they had a title, but that’s completely backwards. How can you title a book , give it an identity, when you have no clue what its about?” From there on, everything got better. We discussed several problems writers have, and how to fix them. It felt amazing to talk with someone else about these things, when no one else in the entirety of the universe had been able to do that with me before. Who knew that those scattered ideas I held to myself, the petty troubles I so abhored, were the same cherished thoughts and hated conflicts experiences by a FAMOUS author? Every comment one of us made during that conversation, the other would want to leap up and yelp- “Oh my gosh,I know!” He gave me valuable advice as we joked about concepts that aren’t funny to any one whose never held a pen and praised it for its capablilties. It was amazing, and this encounter will, I gaurentee, fuel excitment for my hobby, and love for the work involved for a long, long time.