Sometimes it's nice to get some feedback...

From the isn't-it-nice-to-be-a-writer file.

I was in a coffee shop the other day, standing in line to pay, when an acquaintance approached to say hello. She is a teacher at a local school, a school at which I had recently made an appearance, presenting to a grade six class on the topic of stories, history and my Abigail Massey books.

My acquaintance and I chatted for a second, then she called one of her colleagues over to introduce us. It turns out that her colleague was the teacher who had originally invited me to speak at the school in the first place. Unfortunately, as a result of scheduling issues, the teacher had not been able to be there for my presentation.

So this was the first time we'd actually met.

"I've heard wonderful things about your presentation," the teacher told me, smiling broadly. "The children were very excited and told me all about it the next day."

I thanked her for her kind words and remembered how good I had felt coming out of the presentation. I thought it had gone well and that the kids, mostly 10 and 11 year olds, seemed to have had fun. At least they paid attention the whole time!

"It's hard to get children interested at that age," the teacher said, "and to keep them focused for any period of time. So I was really pleased to hear how well it went."

Talk about your nice feelings inside! As I mentioned to this teacher and my acquaintance, I have absolutely no problem standing up in front of large groups of adults and giving a talk. I've presented to groups as large as 100 or more people and never suffered even an ounce of nerves.

But children? Yikes. As Phoebe said on Friends, "Kids are different: they actually listen."

I have always felt that one of the hardest things about being a writer, especially a small-time privately-published writer like me, is the lack of feedback, positive or negative. Nobody reviews you in the newspaper; you don't have a long list of comments on GoodReads or at your website.

So it's a great feeling once in a while to get this kind of positive response. To be told, in effect, "you done good." Especially with reference to a situation like that where I really felt nervous going in to the classroom.