Ah, the Conference!

Imagine a teacup being filled via fire hose.

That is the experience of attending a writers’ conference. So much information blasting at you, threatening to knock that teacup right over or shatter it from the pressure. Sometimes so much surges through that most of it splashes right back out. How to hang onto all that I learned?

I don’t think it’s possible to recall it all. I had my laptop open for nearly all of the classes, tapping notes like crazy. I soaked up everything I could from James Scott Bell during the Early Bird Session Friday morning on the 6 Critical Success Factors of Fiction – Plot, Structure, Characters, Scenes, Dialogue, and Description.

Even more hours were spent in my continuing education track with Gayle Roper. This class was designed to get a writer from ‘close’ to ‘there.’

One hour workshops I took included ones on Voice, the Muse, Theme, and one on writing the ‘bigger’ book. These were all excellent, as were the two evening spotlights I attended, one being an agent panel.

Plenty of opportunities to pitch resulted in two requests for material and two strong encouragements (with advice) for Domino’s Game. I also had the chance to talk about the two other novels I’ve been sending out, though they weren’t my focus this week.

I got to know some great new friends as well as spend a bit of time with some I’d met last year. And I was tired. A bit melancholy, though it doesn’t quite make sense. In fact, I still am as I look back on the weekend.

At any rate, there is still a lot of information for this ‘teacup’ to absorb!