As good as it gets

At the WWA Conference in Brookfield on 9/22 one of the presenters was my friend, mentor, teacher Christine DeSmet.  Several years ago Christine developed a session called “Write in a ‘Cinematic’ Way”.  When inviting Christine to present I asked her if she had a version that could be presented in an hour.  She promised to work on it and thought if she limited her examples to just two that it would be possible.

A few days later Christine wrote an email and suggested she may use my third novel Dead Reckoning as one of the examples.  I was both honored and terrified.  I have taken many classes from Christine and give her credit for shaping my writing to the point that I could publish three novels in a five year period.

Later she sent me an email to ask what the age of my protagonist, Ian Murphy, was in the third book.  He’s 54, had his best friend die of a massive heart attack, is newly married and is given the task of mentoring a 22 year old in graduate school and University College Cork.

At the close of the conference I was talking with Christine and she gave me a copy of the handout she used.  “I think you’ll be interested in this” she said packing her display and leaving the hotel.  I didn’t get a chance to review the handout until the conference wrapped up and I was relaxing in the hotel lobby.
It was a six page handout back-to-back.  She had used only two examples – one from John Smolens, Cold.  The other from the first three pages of Dead Reckoning.

Christine transformed those pages into a screenplay to demonstrate how the writing was “cinematic”.  I stopped breathing and felt giddy.  I couldn’t trust myself to believe what I read.  I had flashbacks to Christine’s writing classes when I furiously took notes and then after class practiced, practiced, practiced.
I had to sit down, catch my breath, and let me heart resume a normal beat.  I felt warmth surge through my body. 

“I have arrived.”  As a writer to be used as an example by your long time teacher and mentor –

This is as good as it gets.