My First Column on Book Awards for Writing Raw

It Is Nice to be Recognized

Like many things in life, my best book award was my first book award so my first column is about that experience. Future columns will be about individual awards and what to do when you get one.

When I won my first book award (Best "How To" Book, DIY Book Festival) for How to Negotiate Like a Pro, I was very excited and felt validated as a writer. I had been involved in the lonely art of writing a book with little feedback from others. I was not sure if it was a "good" book or not. I liked it and it really boosted my spirits to know that someone else liked it, too. I was thrilled that I could now write, "Mary Greenwood, award-winning author" on my marketing materials.

All the winners of the DIY (Do It Yourself) Book Festival Awards were invited to an awards banquet in October in Los Angeles, California. It was only a few weeks away and I could hardly afford it, but I said to myself, "Mary, you may never win another book award so you owe it to yourself to go." I made my airline and hotel reservation using frequent flyer miles. Since this was Hollywood, I thought I might get discovered just like all those famous actresses at Hollywood and Vine.

When I arrived at my hotel in the Hollywood Hills, it had no record of my reservation and even worse it was totally booked. I must have sounded desperate. "I am a writer and I am getting an award tonight and I really need a room." The desk clerk, who was also a budding writer, said that there were apartments above the hotel that they owned and that there was a vacancy.

He said that he would show me the apartment, which Jerry Bruckheimer used when he needed peace and quiet to write. I was thinking that if it was good enough for Jerry Bruckheimer, it would be good enough for me! The apartment was very sparse and a little dumpy, but it did have a killer view of the Hollywood Sign. I was wondering where exactly Jerry Bruckheimer wrote in this apartment and what he was working on. Of course, I said I would take it and forgot about the nice hotel room below.

I went to the Awards Ceremony and got my award; it was very nice to be recognized. However, It was a little anti-climactic because the highlight of my trip was the "fact" that I stayed in the same apartment as Jerry Bruckheimer. Since then I have had a nagging feeling that the desk clerk made up a story so I would take the apartment, but it could be true.

Whenever I see the closing credits of CSI, I ask myself whether he was working on the script for that or was it the Pirates of the Caribbean?




Mary Greenwood, Mediator, Attorney and Author of How To Negotiate Like A Pro: 41 Rules for Resolving Disputes, Winner of six book awards; How to Mediate Like a Pro, winner of twelve book awards; How to Interview Like a Pro, winner of ten book awards.
Email: howtointerview@aol.com; websites: www.howtointerviewlikeapro.org;
www.marygreenwood.org