Workshop Weekend

I spent the weekend attending the Midwest Fiction Writers’ Fall Harvest Workshop in Minneapolis.  It was two days filled with concepts like deep editing, anaphora, power words, visceral responses, and other big words.  It was good to take a bit of time to step out of writing and look at the process as a whole.  I’ll probably use some of the technique and skip others.  It’s all about using the ideas that work for you.

Still, the best part of the weekend was making some new friends.  You’ll have to check out Christine Columbus‘ work.  She writes for Wild Rose Press.  If she’s half as talented as she is funny, you’re in for a treat.

Great Conference

I had a great conference in sunny, steamy Orlando.  I went to several great workshops.  The amount of information can be a bit overwhelming.  E-books are the big item up for discussion this year, along with how they will change the publishing business.  Nobody seems to quite know, and there is a lot of uncertainty, nervousness, and excitement.  I think great books are still going to be great books, but getting people to find them could be the trick.

So I did all the conference stuff — saw friends, collected too many books for my suitcase, and went to events.  As always, the conference food was… questionable.  Chicken with a green crust???  Chicken with red sauce.  Chicken, chicken, chicken.  My friend, writer Jess Michaels, and I escaped one evening to Epcot and had the best steak dinner ever.  Ever.

It was a jam-packed few days that left me exhausted.  Now I need to sort through everything I heard and learned to find the true gems.  Then it’s time to put them into writing.  Does anyone know the secret to traveling and coming back refreshed?  Do you need vacations from your vacations?  I need hints!

RWA National Conference

I’m getting ready to leave for the RWA National Conference in Orlando.  It promises to be a big event this year as it’s sold out.  I’m not sure how many people that will be, but I’d guess it would be in the 1000-1200 range.  That’s 1000 published and unpublished writers, editors, agents, and hardcore readers wandering around the mega-sized hotel.  It’s an interesting dynamic given that writers, by nature, are introverts.  Agents, on the other hand, are the extroverts.  Unfortunately in this environment, hungry writers tend to hunt down agents and editors with single-minded intent.  Everybody’s wanting to make contacts and sales.  Agents and editors are, meanwhile, hurrying everywhere while trying to hide the color of their name badges.  See?  It’s fun.

There will be a lot happening in those four days.  There will be countless workshops, one of which I’ll be moderating.  (I hope it doesn’t get out of hand!)  Publishers will be having parties for their staff and authors.  Authors will be gathering in the bars to share gossip.  Ahem… “industry news.”  It’s always great to see friends or make that chance encounter with a big name author.  You never know when you’ll run into Nora Roberts in the elevator or end up sitting at a luncheon table with J.R. Ward.

Anyway, it’s the one time of the year where authors come out of their writing caves.  It’s a fun time, and a lot of good things happen there.  I, for one, am ready to go.