So, I went to my first Writing Conference on Saturday.
The conference was actually Thursday-Saturday but I didn't find out about the conference until Friday. Actually, i found out in such short notice that when someone was arranging for me to get a free ticket to go I was kind of hesitant, mainly because 1) I wanted to sleep in because I can't anymore because of commuting to work and 2) it was SUCH short notice. I mean, i didn't have anything planned for Saturday but I had to plan out a lot of things. A free ticket came in so I went to the conference. I ended up going about two hours earlier than I needed to. The beginning was first 10 line critiques. I didn't need to be there for that but I sat in the back of the room and took some general notes. Also, I had the option to pitch my story to other author and publishers. I would have done this for our book series, but, I was very under prepared for it so I decided not to. Too bad. So, the keynote speaker was a suspense writer named Brad Parks. He was hilarious and I loved his keynote address. The reason why I responded so well to it is because he added in humor, lots and lots of humor. If I am sitting at an assembly and you are basically just giving a straight speech, I will stop paying attention after about 10 minutes because its just talking, talking, talking. Parks' speech was basically a list of everything he knows about writing, all seventeen steps and I wrote down every single one of them. I took so many notes at this conference. I just finished typing it up; all my notes ended up being 7 pages long, single spaced. Now wipe those shocked looks off of your faces. I didn't type it all up in paragraphs, it was in bullets. Anyway, I then went to a workshop entitled "Blogs, Blurbs, and Bios, Oh my!". This is around the time where I wished I had learned about the conference sooner so that I could have attended on Thursday or Friday. This panel was very informative and I learned a lot, but I would have benefited more from some of the other panels on the other conference dates. Mainly because I already know about blogging and blurbs. However, I did learn more than what I already knew so that was a plus. I left the conference after the break for lunch because the rest of the workshops mainly focused on specific genres of writing that wouldn't have really helped me. See, another reasoning as to why I wish I went earlier. All in all, it was very informative. I met a few people and got their business cards, unfortunately i didn't give any out, but when i would tell people that i was writing a book series with my sisters and that we were quadruplets they seemed really interested. This gives me hope for all the future projects my sisters and I have planned or would like to do. Here's hoping with everything I learned and the few people I met, something good will come out of it, especially for our book series. -SJ
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"Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you." - Walt Whitman Archives
January 2022
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