A WRITER'S CONFERENCE IN THE CLOUDS

I say in the clouds because I came home on cloud nine--me and about a hundred others. I promise that the results of my attending the ANWA writer's conference were similar to other's.
I did not get an agent interested in my fairy story, but that's okay. My asking about it was last minute. I like the story, but it's a cross-genre type of tale and agents have a tendency to shy away from that sort of thing.

What I did do is put myself out there. I talked to agents and editors. Not to try and sell them on my book, but perhaps just to get them thinking about me in a possitive way. Having no pressure to "sell" was a freeing experience. "Hi, I'm Tina. What kinds of things are you interested in?"

At other conferences, the pressure to "sell" myself or my book paralyzed me. I could barely breathe let alone carry on a conversation. This time I introduced my sister and my friends, and also had time to share a bit about myself and my writing.

It was an intense two and a half days of learning the craft of writing and self promotion, and stealing moments here and there to go write an inspired thought or two. From sunup to sundown we were living and breathing our writing dreams.

And, BTW--I WON FIRST PLACE IN THE ROMANCE CATEGORY OF THE BOB (BEGINNING OF BOOK) CONTEST!!!!! Funny, because that particular entry was sent in as an after thought.

The conference was life-changing in more ways that just my winning a contest, however. I plan on this being a year of changes. And it all started with my going to a writer's conference.

Way to work on your dreams, Tina! Good job!
See you next week. (figuratively speaking, of course.)

My Big Win at LDStorymaker's

It’s funny how things work sometimes. We think we know what we want or what we need. We hope and pray for it, and then the very thing we didn’t want to happen, happens.


That was my experience at the LDStorymaker’s First Chapter Contest. I entered my first chapter and wanted to win. Of course. Everyone wants to win. If I could only win, I’d get a coveted “get out of the slush pile free” card. I wanted one, bad.

This particular story is one I’ve been working on since I became a writer. I’ve written, and re-written it at least a dozen times. It’s grown and progressed along the way—which is a good thing because when I first started writing it, I didn’t know anything about writing a novel. I didn’t even know about different genres or that there should be different ages for the main character in different types of novels. Still I persisted because I had a dream.

I finally thought it was ready.

Thank goodness for premonitions or I might have been really upset. I kept getting the feeling that I wouldn’t win. By the time I got to the conference I still wanted to be wrong, I wanted to win, but I wasn’t overly disappointed when I didn’t.

This is the good part, though. I didn’t win.

Because I didn’t win, I have taken the judges comments more seriously than I probably would have if I had won. And, because I took the judges comments to heart I’ve made improvements to my novel in a way I’d not have been able to do otherwise. (Actually a good portion of them had very nice things to say about my chapter and my writing in general which boosted my spirits considerably.)

I was finally able to see my MC though the critical eyes of my judges and it opened a storage-box of knowledge that I’d been accumulating all these years. Since then, I’ve been writing like a maniac, reading and re-reading, and writing some more.

Giggling like a school girl with a new tub of play dough, I’m molding my main character into the person I always wanted her to be, I’m shaping the setting until there’s a sense of place, and I’m giving dimension to my story.

In essence, I won big time.

Thank you, LDStorymaker’s and LDStorymaker’s judges!!! It was the best $10. I've ever spent.