Boy, did I learn a lot this weekend! The speakers and workshops were really outstanding, just like I knew they would be. A brief rundown:
Emily Sewell: Creating a Style Guide–Too late for Soul Lost or Nick, but I am definitely doing this for People of the Green Hills from now on. This means creating a list of punctuation, spelling, setting descriptions, and names as you work so that you can be consistent as you write.
Sally Kirkpatrick: Overcoming Conflict Avoidance–She revisited GMC (Goal, Motivation, Conflict) and talked about giving your protagonists what they want in the worse way possible to create more conflict. In other words, the hero/heroine didn’t realize that getting what he/she wanted most would come with a terrible price.
Candace Havens: Fast Draft and Revision Hell–How to write a first draft by writing 20pp/day for 14 days, then take two more weeks to revise it. She literally means drop everything else and write for two weeks; take a break; and then drop everything for two weeks to revise. Very,very ambitious.
Kimberly Kincaid: Cooperative Marketing–How to combine with other writers to market for everyone at the same time.
Eleanor McInnes: Heating Up with Humor–very funny take on how to use humor without letting it control the story. Great ideas on character development. Watch out for the Evil Cutsie!
Tyra Burton: Website, Sweet Website–Lots of great ideas for using websites and social media to get your name out there. Hope to use some of her suggestions to improve this site.
This was a great time surrounded by people who love to write–or rather, love having written, because not many people actually enjoy the process, This remains one of my favorite weekends of the whole year!
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