A Day of Temples and meeting Temple Grandin

A Day of Temples

Saturday morning my sister and I packed up our bags and headed out to go see some temples before we met up with her friend. We headed to Mount Timpanogos temple first where I was sad to learn that my Olympus Stylus 1 camera, which I have had for only two years, ceased to work. The on and off button was jammed, so I opted to use my IPhone instead (I should start packing an extra camera). After Mount Timpanogos we headed over to the Draper Temple. The Draper temple is a little strange to me because there are only a few windows and it resembles more of a granite fortress, but it’s beautiful none the less. After walking around the grounds and dodging several brides we made it to the car and drove over to Oaker Mountain Temple. We walked around on the temple grounds. I love being at the temples because they bring such a feeling of peace. After Oaker Mountain we met up with Sarah’s friend for lunch and relaxed at her house. At 6 we headed over to the Salt Lake Airport to catch our flight at 8:50.

We arrived early, turned in the rental car, checked our bags, went through security, and proceeded to gate C033. It took us a few minutes to find an empty seat. I faced the seat to set down my backpack down when I heard Sarah say, “Look who it is.” I turned around and spotted Temple Grandin in her western wear and white kerchief held in place by a silver pin with the initials T.G. There was no mistake it was Temple Grandin!

I grabbed my phone and approached her slowly. I leaned in close and whispered, “Temple Grandin?”

Her light green hazel eyes met mine. She folded up her newspaper, and she rose immediately.

“Yes? How can I help you?” she asked shoulders back.

I was already in tears and I stuttered, “I’m a huge fan of your work, I was wondering if I could get a picture with you?”

“Of course,” she said and she stood very close and my sister Sarah, also in tears, took the picture.

 I thought this was all that was going to happen, but Temple Grandin faced me and leaned in very close so that we were eye to eye.

“Do you have a career?”

“Yes, I’m working as a receptionist…”

“What company?”

“It’s an environmental company where my sister works.”

“That’s no good.”

“I didn’t get her the job, my boss did,” Sarah clarified.

“So you’re not her mother?” Temple asked.

Sarah laughs and says, “No, I’m her older sister.”

“Still it’s no good. Where are you living?”

“With my parents.”

“That’s no good either. You need to get work experience. Find something you like to do. Where are you going to college and what are you going to college for?”

“I’m going to Front Range Community College and I’m working on an Associates of Arts degree for writing.”

“Good. Good. What are you writing?”

“I’m working on a memoir for autism.”

“That’s no good. There are too many young kids focusing on their autism. Stop focusing on your autism. If you publish a memoir on Autism it will hurt your sales. I published my book on the Language of Autism and it hurt the sales. So what you want to do is make sure that autism is nowhere in the title or the description. What do you want to do with writing?”

“I want to be a writer of High Fantasy novels.”

“High Fantasy? Now what is that?”

“High Fantasy is a vast genre about worlds and other races much like J.R. Tolkien and J.K. Rowling.”

“Good. So you’re studying about other writers in that genre?”

“Yes.”

“Now what you want to do is study everyone you like in that genre so that you don’t copy anyone. If you copy someone you’re liable to go to court and that’s no good either. So what you want to do is find someone who inspires you and build from there. What you want to do is go online and look up Fantasy Book Forums. Now that’s a key set of words. Fantasy Book Forums and you’ll find a lot of stuff where you can support yourself. You’ll also want to have a pen name.”

(She gives me a pen name, which I won’t share here)

“It’s a nice pen name because people will assume you’re a man because of your genre. I published Thinking in Pictures and they thought I was a man. I was reading in the newspapers this disgusting article. It’s disgusting because women get paid 20% less than men do on eBay. 20% now that’s a disgusting amount. So with a pen name you’re liable to get a little more because well they think you’re a man. When they think you’re a man they’re liable to publish you more and take you on. Remember your pen name. Now with that pen name you’ll want to build up a persona. You build a persona by setting up separate blogs for your short stories. Short stories are the best way to build up a persona. It’s all about persona. Once you have your short story blog, put it on twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook page, personal websites, and especially amazon platform because they’re all free. You’ll also want to consider publishing EBooks. I see so many people with nooks, tablets, and kindles in their hands instead of newspapers and books. That’s what you want first. That’s the best way to get yourself out there and build your persona. Once you have that persona then you move onto publishing your high fantasy novel. Before you publish your fantasy novel focus on structure it’s all about structure. Do you have structure?”

“Yes. I want my fantasy book to be an eight book series. I have the beginning and end of each book plotted out and I am making sure the plot runs through each book.”

“Good. Good. What about short stories?”

“I have many from a writers group.”

“And do they like your stories?”

“Yes, they do.”

“What do you do in your writers group?”

“We share our stories, do a writer’s prompt, and critique each other.”

“Good that’s important because you don’t want to critique your own stuff, it’s not effective, and that’s why there are such things as copy editors. Now copy editors are important. Very important. They are there to edit your stories. Now when I was writing Thinking in Pictures there were a lot of negative comments about how many people don’t think in pictures and I took that very literally.”

“How do they think?”

“Some are mathematical and some think in words. Now that’s important to remember, your audience thinks differently. Be sure to remember that. Your audience thinks differently. Now you’re going to receive a lot of constructive criticism online and what you want to do is root out all the trolls. They’re usually teenage boys spilling nasty stuff. Just block them and find the ones that matter and take their constructive criticism seriously and you’ll get better. Now when you start your short story blog don’t worry about your stuff getting stolen because if it does you are the writer so you can write more and the person who steals it can’t. Also don’t rant, rave, ramble, or post your political agenda online. An audience doesn’t like that and you’ll receive a lot of bad comments that lack constructive criticism and you’ll never be taken seriously. Now it was very nice meeting you, I have a flight to catch,” she says and she sits down and picks up her leather bag embossed with western designs and her name.

“Thank you so much Temple Grandin, it was very nice meeting you,” I said.

“Structure! Remember structure! Plot your books and you’ll be fine!” she said tugging on her bag and she lifted her hand in a wave and disappeared down the terminal.

I returned to my seat deeply uplifted and I started to cry. I always cry when I don’t expect something like this to happen because I can’t plan for it.

“Stop, you’re going to make me cry,” Sarah stammered, but it was already too late and we sat and cried in the terminal to the befuddlement of the other passengers.

It was truly a day of temples and I never knew that an answer to my prayer would come in the miraculous form of Temple Grandin.