Conference Woes

Went to a writer's conference this weekend and left all depressed-like. It was amazing, do not get me wrong, those of you shaking your heads at me and wondering if I'm on crack. The thing just depressed the snot out of me. Let me explain.

I learned a gazillion and one things. Like literally, a gazillion and one. How to change my middle from muddle to magnificent, how to creep out (and not creep out) an editor, how to make my characters set apart, etc. And it depressed me. Cause now I have so much work to do on my novel! Argh! My friend Beth and I spent Friday night on the way to my aunt's house reworking my novel. Which was great but now I've got a bunch of work to do. Oh well.

Another way the conference depressed me was that I went to this workshop class on your first page, led by an agent who read the first pages and commented on what was good/bad and whether or not she would want to read more. She must have read at least 15 first pages and all of them were good - in her opinion - and she would choose to read more! So if all those good first pages are out there, what makes mine any better? Why should I be the one who gets published? That depressed me to no end - even though I thought some of the first pages were kinda crappy. Anyway.

The conference did have some highlights - I met two wonderful women who were hilarious - Amy and Erin. They were super funny and it was a joy to meet them, even though the conference didn't give us much time for socializing. It was also nice to see that Beth and I weren't the only ones who skipped the morning Keynote and devotion...

So yes, now I see the sheer amount of work ahead of me but I also got some good feedback on my novel and I think I might have finally found my niche. Maybe. So now it's time to put the pedal to the metal, the fingers to the keyboard (insert more cliches here) and fix my novel!

Geez, I love conferences...

Home from Blue Ridge

Whew! This is exciting. I've had a blog before (and will continue to post on it) but it is more for mundane everyday stuff. This will be a blog for my writing. At least, more so than the other one.

I just got back two days ago from Ridgecrest, at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference. Try saying that five times fast! Anyway, it was a blast. Here's some things I learned.

1) I have not arrived. Try jumping in a lake. Do I walk on water? No. I am not nearly as good as I think I am.

2) I'm not that bad either. A good bit of the advice that they gave in the classes, my book employs successfully. Some not. But it gave me renewed hope.

3) I finally found a genre for Willing to Die. Turns out it is supernatural military suspense. Go figure.

4) I learned how to write suspense, sitting at the feet of the master, Steven James. I'm serious, if you haven't read his Patrick Bowers thrillers, go to your public library right now. Or better yet, the bookstore, as you're going to want to keep them when you're done. I know I'm beating myself up for not buying the Knight as well.

5) Improv is amazing. I love improv.

6) Editors and agents are not as scary as they seem to be - at least not the ones at this conference.

7) And, finally, I learned that this is my dream. I want to write and I love to write. Therefore, I am going to write until my imagination runs dry - and that shouldn't be any time soon.

Now, I am feverishly rewriting so that I can submit and I'm not even feeling overwhelmed.

Word of advice. If you do a complete overhaul of your manuscript, save it to a hard drive. You never know when your computer is going to crash two days after a conference. Praise the Lord that Philberta Bones from the HP online chat with a technician service was able to help me restore my computer and save my files.

And that, friends, is all for now.

michelle