Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Rifting Aragon at Surrey 2010


This is my 100th blog post and I wanted it to be, well, epic is the only word that comes to mind. Seeing as I just came home from SiWC and am full of inspiration from all the wonderful speakers, I thought that perhaps instead of being epic on my own, I would let someone else do it for me. Namely, Robert Dugoni who gave THE most epic of all speeches. Keep in mind that this is as close to it as I could come with my faulty memory.

"When looking at the publishing world and trying to break in, for those of you who are still trying to make it past the front gate, its like looking up at the Black Gates of Mordor. Like an impossible task with talk of publishing houses cutting back, e-pubs taking over and the recession hitting hard. But I would say to you this,

Writers of Surrey! My brothers and sisters. I see in your eyes the same fear that would take the heart of me. A day may come when the courage of writers fail, when agents and editors forsake us and we break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you to write. An hour of rejections and shattered pens may come when the Age of writers comes crashing down, but it is not this day. This day, this day we write!"

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow. I'm going to have to bookmark this page. It was such an inspiration speech. (and funny too!) Thanks for writing it down.

Trish L

Marieke said...

I am in love with that speech, I am.

Riley Relfe said...

Oh My LOVING God! Wow! That is one heck of a locker room speech. :)

Shari Green said...

Thanks so much for re-capturing this epicness. That was such an awesome keynote!!

Nick A. said...

I felt like pumping my fist in the air while reading this. I hope someone puts his speech on YouTube!

Carol J. Garvin said...

Thanks for this! By themselves the words have a little less impact than hearing Dugoni proclaim them, but I can still hear his voice in my head! What a send-off from the weekend of inspiration!

Anonymous said...

Glad you got the text. What a fab speech it was. Hope your first post-conference week went well.

Leanne

Tanya said...

thats a great one :)