Chaos

I'm making myself crazy again. I feel like I'm spreading myself too thin, but I'm not sure I have anything to show for it. The last week and a half has seemed really crazy.

I finished my rewrite, which was kind of a first draft since I changed direction in the middle, so mostly was just going back and making things consistent.

Last Monday, doctor appointment for Thing Two. Tuesday, music lessons for Thing two. Wednesday, doctor appointment for Thing Two, plus dinner out for her birthday. Friday night soccer game for Thing Two.

Don't get me wrong, Thing One has stuff too, but mostly on the social end. My house is full of teenagers just about every day eating my food, messing up my kitchen and basement, etc.

Saturday was the last of my three release parties which seems superfluous, I know, but was necessary.

Sunday was all day soccer (three games). Monday pick up Thing One from basketball game. Tuesday, coffee meeting and music lesson for Thing Two. Today shopping for bass guitars, doctor appointment, and choir concert all for Thing Two. Tomorrow Writing Celebration at a middle school. Friday coffee meeting to deliver auction items, then soccer game. Saturday book signing and birthday party. Sunday two soccer games.

That's as far as I can think ahead. I miss my driver. I think I may need to spend the money aned hire another one.

And all of the above in the midst of me working the day job, trying to figure out what to write next, trying to finish up guest blog posts, trying to plan talks at above mentioned middle school, plus school visits later in the month. Designing a poster for a group event next month, and keeping up with social media, which for a writer is very important, grocery shopping, keeping house clean, etc. Trying to plan, family vacation, trip to NY, and budgeting my vacation time for all this plus school visits conferences etc.

I'm exhausted again and I miss the sun. sigh.

This is me, just bitching, venting, using you, my readers as a sounding board. Sorry and thank you.

Monday Morning Blahg: Will Write for Food

Someone asked me yesterday if writing was my job.  I responded that I wished it to be one day.  Don't get me wrong, as far as day jobs go, I have a great one.  The people I work with are wonderful, I basically get to surf the internet all day doing research or Facebooking, Tweeting, or blogging.  I get to design cool, attention getting ads.  It's very awesome.

But I think the goal of many writers is to live off of their craft some day. Of course, this is not easy unless you're King, Rowling, Meyer, etc.  Many of us will have to come  out of our shells and have live personal interaction with people outside of our computer monitors.  Skype visits, school visits, conferences, etc.  That's how we live off of it.  This is the stuff I have to learn.  I have to find my niche, so I can prepare a presentation.

I really admire the writers who travel around and give that part of themselves to their readers and other writers.  I'm terrified of it, but I know if I want to be only a writer, I have to get over it.  This may take therapy. :)

Happy Monday.

Megan

T is for Talk: Conference Talk

While I can't give you details of each class, because the talks are the property of each faculty member at the conference, I can give you a little idea of the sessions I took and the basic concept behind them, and also what else went on.

First there was an Editor/Agent/Art director panel, which was pretty informative.  People on the panel included Lionel Bender, Justin Chanda, Sarah Davies, Martha Mihalick, Joe Monti, Anne Moore, Timothy Travaglini, Liz Waniewski, Tina Wexler, and Marietta Zacker (you're going to have to look them up)

Then was keynote address by Deborah Wiles, which was amazing.  She talked about writing from your head, your heart, and your imagination and shared some personal stories and how they translated to content in her books.

My first breakout session was labeled as Marketing Mania: To the Bookshelf-The Sometimes Hidden Path, the speaker was agent Joe Monti.  It wasn't really was I thought it was going to be.  I thought it would talk more about Marketing, but it talked mainly about the process before that, what to expect between the time a book is signed to how it gets to the shelves.

My second session was Collaborative Marketing: Strength in Numbers by Roseanne Parry.  She was part of the Class of 2k9, and gave a lot of great information I can use with 2k12.  One of my favorite sessions.

Next session was How Far is Too Far in Teen Lit by Brent Hartinger.  I think he is an amazing person, and we happened to attend the same high school, though he was two years out by the time he got there.  This is what I took from that class:  I'm going to write what I want and let my agent figure out if it's too edgy.  You can go pretty far these days in edgy YA, and would be with good company.

I already told you I missed a few keynotes, which I really would have liked to see, but shit happens.

Sunday my first session was Five Ways to Make Your Character Sparkle by Kevin Emerson.  Great workshop about character development.  Kevin was very funny.  This was the session that I got up and read my stuff.  It was scary.

Next session, Writing From Anger by E. Lockhart.  Not what I expected, but it was interesting.

Next was Character Driven Stories by Liz Waniewski.  This was very helpful.  Most of the stuff I've written is character driven, and she gave us a worksheet to help us shape our characters, that was based on what she looks for when reading a manuscript.

There was another panel.  Local success stories. I'm not going to remember them all I think, but some of them were Carole Dagg, Caridad Ferrer, Craig Orback, Wendy Wahman, Jim Whiting, Jesse Joshua Watson, and Dori Yang.

There was also book signings.  I got a book signed by Holly Black and Brent Hartinger.

And then I nearly collapsed, so I left before the last keynote.

All in all a fun, informative weekend I would highly suggest to anyone.  There is no limit on educating yourself, and continuing to work on your craft.

Monday Morning Blahg: SCBWI Western Washington Conference

I have learned something about myself through attending the SCBWI WW Conference this weekend.  I'm a conference wimp.  I do not have the endurance to make it through the entire thing, at least not the way I was doing it.  I will mentally and physically prepare myself next year to meet the challenge of making it through the entire event.

Of course that was not all I learned.  I learned things vital to honing my craft, and also how to get the most out of my conference.  I'm going to start with the latter.

One very important thing I forgot, and remembered Friday night after I was already there, bring business cards.  You talk to so many people, you will want a card with all your vitals on it.  I am an idiot and didn't even think about it until I was already there mingling with the 400 writers in attendance (not to mention the agents and editors).

Pace yourself.  These are long days.  There is a Friday night social.  Have a couple drinks, mingle, then go to bed.  Things start bright and early especially if you're a conference virgin.  I may have stayed up a bit too late, then had to be at orientation by 7:30 the next morning.  I had to take a breather between my last session and the wine and cheese hour to catch my second wind.  AND, it is not a good idea to go out and close the bars down with your conference Bestie, Jarucia, AFTER the dance, then stay up talking for another hour.  Nope, that will definitely make you miss stuff.


This absolute exhaustion made me miss out on three keynotes, by E. Lockhart, Dan Santat, and Holly Black, which sucked big time.  Which brings me to this:  I think I may even book an extra day at the hotel and leave MONDAY, so I don't have to think about the long drive home.

Now, let's go back to the dance.  Do NOT be afraid to look stupid.  People attending the more social events of the conference are there to have fun and mingle, just like you.  So what if they want you to dress up like you came to the future?  Do it.  I was adamant about NOT dressing up.  No way uh uh wasn't going to happen.  Then Jarucia texted me and said she was dressing up, but just a little.  Luckily I had brought twice the amount of clothing I did (which I always do, "packing light" is not in my vocab)  I put on a tank with some sequins and beads around the neck, did my hair up in a high pony tail, put on three shades of eye shadow and purple blush, and called myself one of Capt. Kirk's bitches, but not the green one.  And you know what?  I didn't think I'd dance.  I didn't think I'd have fun, but . . . wait for it . . . I did.  Many were dressed up, many were dancing, many were having a good time, just like me. 

And because this weekend is so full and jam packed, don't even think you'll have time to read or write or do anything aside from attending conference events and sleeping.  I brought my laptop.  I looked at it for a little bit on Friday when I got there, and that was it.

You do not need to bring a big bag.  A tote bag, sure.  Mine was too big and cumbersome and started irritating me after about ten minutes. They sell awesome SCBWI totes there.  Buy one as a souvenir.

Come hungry.  No, I don't mean for that book deal, I mean literally hungry.  It is obscene how much food they give you.  Bagels, croissants, fruit, coffee, cheese for breakfast.  Their lunches were more than I usually eat in a day.  A GIANT sandwich (I am not even exaggerating), fruit cup, potato chips, cookie larger than what is good and pure in the world.  I ate my sandwich both days, the fruit the first day, I hope my maid enjoyed the cookies and chips.  Oh, and then dinner.  Huge spread.


If you have a shell, get out of it.  I took some big leaps this weekend.  You would probably not know it from my writing, but I am insanely shy around people I don't know.  First night I sat at the bar by myself eating a salad, they opened registration and I pounced on the first person I saw sitting alone, begging him to let me sit with him.  His name was Stephen (I think, I met A LOT of people), and I really appreciated that he let me hang out with him and his friend until Jarucia got there.  Totally out of my comfort zone.

The second afternoon, I was taking a break (because I was so damn tired) eating pita and hummus in the bar.  A woman came in and sat nearby.  After sitting there for awhile, I finally struck up a conversation. Her name was Sunny, she was a sweet woman who introduced me to a couple other women, one with whom I had a few more conversations throughout the weekend Sharon, and I was so thankful.

And here's a biggee.  You know, seeing these writers up on these panels, and teaching these sessions, I realized that once my book came out, people just might want me to speak.  In public. In front of people.  Which scares the hell out of me.  So one of my sessions was a  writing workshop about character development.  And he asked if anyone wanted to share, and before I could argue with it, my hand shot up.  I did explain to everyone that I volunteered because of my fear of public speaking and apologized in advance if my voice quavered or I passed out.  My voice did quaver, and my body shook from fear, but luckily, I kept from fainting.

I think lastly (probably not lastly, but all I can think about writing at this time) I urge you to talk to people.  Mingle, meet, introduce.  Many of the people there are in the same boat, or at an earlier stage, or later stage in their writing journey.  You can learn a lot, you can teach, you can share, commiserate, whatever you want.  I think in general, writers are nice, caring people.  And I think, as one of the faculty members, Roseanne Parry, said, we're not in competition with each other.  She's right.  We work hand in hand to create art.  To inspire each other.  To promote each other.  We celebrate each other.

I probably didn't meet as many people as I would have liked, my shell harder to crack than I thought it would be, but I did meet some very kind, creative people.  The weekend was invaluable to me.  I'm so glad I finally decided to take in a conference.  Next year (or who knows, maybe this summer in L.A.) I'm going to try to break that shell down a little more, and meet more people in the industry.  No matter who it is, or what stage they might be in their journey to publication, I'm sure I will benefit from having met them.

Tomorrow I'll talk about some of the sessions I took and what they meant to me.

F³A: Conference

And I totally forgot to write yesterday.  My bad.  I was just going to talk about people being in such a hurry all the time.  The other day people were cutting people off, passing dangerously in a no passing area.  I even got honked at RIGHT after the light turned green.  Pissed me off.

But enough about that.  I'm heading to SCBWI's Western Washington Conference today.  I'm excited and nervous.  This will be my first conference.  I know there will be people there I know, but I'm quite shy in real life, I'm going to have to break out of my shell to be sociable.

Here are the classes I will be attending:

Conference orientation for first time Attendees
Marketing Mania
Published Pros
Learning and honing
How far is too far in teen lit
Five ways to make your character sparkle
Writing from anger
Character driven stories

I think I will benefit from all these sessions

Anyone else going?

You know, two more people follow and that 200th person gets a prize.  Are you holding out to be the 200th?

Time for Friday Nibbles:

Random iPod Shuffle Song: Kelly Clarkson, Already Gone

Book of the Week: Angie Smibert's Memento Nora.  I've not read it yet, just got it in the mail and am excited about it.

Movie of the Week: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1.  Out on DVD.

Quote of the Week: "Rivers know this:  there is no hurry.  We shall get there someday."  ~A.A. Milne