Conference Fun!

I've been busy having fun at a couple of conferences for the last couple of weekends. The first was SCBWI-FL, where I was on the First Books panel with DonnaGephart and Greg Neri, both of whom have great books.The panel went well...we all had some 'words of wisdom' to pass on to still-unpublished writers. I guess I came across okay...but must work on speaking more spontaneously. Of course, I had no books to sell, but did get to show off my ARC. The conference was good...with interesting speakers, great break-out sessions on Sunday, and a fun dance with a nautical theme.

(Adrian and I at the Nautical Dance)

I ended up hanging out with Adrian Fogelin, who has written some incredible character-driven books. She was one of our main speakers on Saturday and also did a workshop on Sunday. Her talk on Saturday was on how to make a living through writing...she does a lot of school workshops all over the country, but of course, does not have kids at home. She showed us her props for her writing workshops, which were amazing in themselves. Makes me wonder how a kid could NOT write after working with her!

This last weekend, the conference I was running went very well also. I think it was the best one we have had so far. Our speakers were all outstanding...don't think there is a one I would not consider inviting back next year. A couple of our speakers--Dean Smith and his wife Kristine Rusch generated a little bit of controversy when they kept saying 'Write and send--don't edit' because when we edit, we tend to edit out our voice. There have been a couple major discussions of this on Patrick the Space Lord and Robin Brande's sites, if you are interested. My publisher and editor were both at that conference, so it was nice seeing them...and Miriam said I should have books very soon...

Now that I have finished with the conferences (the second one in particular), I can get back to finishing up the editing of the last few chapters of my WIP. I've told the folks at Blooming Tree that it is my goal to have it to them for review by the end of February, so will have to buckle down and get busy. Am also in the process of sending out some of my ARCs for review.