When tickets to the Orson Scott Card lecture were made available Wednesday morning, they were all gone within six minutes.

The standby line outside the auditorium just before the lecture began was evidence of the demand for a chance to listen to the famous fiction authors take on his writings being added to the L. Tom Perry Special Collections section of the Harold B. Lee library.

"I'm both baffled and flattered and just the tiniest bit appalled that this amount of space in [special collections] is devoted to me," Card said in regards to the official unveiling of his added works to the library.

His address was titled "I Just Make This Stuff Up: How Seriously Should a Fiction Writer Take His Own Work."

One of the things Card focused on was the fact that everyone's life is a story that needs to be told and not thrown away by not recording them.

"I do urge you to not lightly throw away the scraps of paper that document your life," Card said. "Every single person ... is the hero of their own story."

Card said his parents have taught him to save the papers from his life that tell his story.

"My parents instilled in me that the artifacts, the documents of our lives, matter," Card said. "We will want to show them to somebody someday."

Jeffrey Lord, a freshman from Bakersfield, Calif., came to the lecture because he recently began to read one of Card's books.

"I started 'Ender's Shadow' this week," Lord said after the lecture was over.

"I have always considered myself a packrat, and when he was telling us we all have our own stories ... I thought it was really cool," Lord said. "I try to write in my journal and keep so many papers [that] my mom gets mad at me."

Card also stressed how reading the scripture has been important in his career. "My sense of how language becomes important comes from my reading the scriptures," Card said.

In the conclusion of his lecture, Card left the audience with encouragement to tell their story. "Any story teller ... who finds any audience that cares about, and believes in their story, has succeeded," Card said. "I regard any writer as successful when he teaches or moves me."

Brian Champion, the coordinator for the House of Learning Lectures at the library, introduced Card as the inaugural speaker of this semester's lecture series. "It is a special pleasure to have a BYU alum inaugurate our lectures this fall," Champion said.

Robert Maxwell, curator of the Orson Scott Card collection gave praise for the author's work. "He is one of the most successful LDS authors of the 20th century," Maxwell said. "a statement that presumably will hold true through the 21st as well."

Following the lecture, a collection of Card's papers, documents and first editions were unveiled at the L. Tom Perry Special Collections section of the library. The items will remain on display throughout the month of September.

For more information on the events at the Harold B Lee Library, including the House of Learning lectures, visit the library Web site at www.lib.byu.edu.

Copyright Brigham Young University 13 Sep 2007