At the NECRWA conference, I had the opportunity to chat with Susan Wiggs (http://www.susanwiggs.com/). Susan is the author of many books, one of them Table For Five, which I just read and enjoyed so much I immediately passed it along to a woman sitting next to me on the airplane. Susan is from the Pacific Northwest, too, and she encouraged me to look into Field's End, a conference in our area.
I did, and I'm registered. Susan, it was your pictures that sold me! Who can resist such a beautiful setting? (To find out about this conference, go to http://www.fieldsend.org/).
My friend Ellie is going to attend with me. It didn't take any arm-twisting. All I did was email her the conference info and she called and said, "I want to go!" I'm looking forward to spending the whole day with Ellie. It's been...gosh...since my Tyler days...? *Snicker* are you wondering what my "Tyler days" were? Hint: Tyler was tall, dark, full of himself, and terrified of my husband.
That was fun :) On to my writing ~
I'm applying the work I did a few weeks ago, where I nailed down some elements of the plot that desperately needed to be nailed down. KEY elements, like whodunit. Writing a mystery is not like writing a more literary story where the plot is character-driven (my other novel is women's fic). While it was fun writing a mystery and being in the dark myself, I fear I've wasted an awful lot of time. And words. A few of the changes I made dovetail right into the existing MS; others require a bit more work, but that's okay. I keep telling myself that I don't have to get every word PERFECT on this draft, but then I linger and agonize over scenes, trying to figure out why it doesn't resonate the way I want it to. I need to stop lingering and just get the changes down and into this draft and THEN go back and rework the scenes.
One more thing: the world may be getting smaller thanks to the internet, but it can't overcome the distance between me and my writing friends. The drawback to belonging to an international writing group is that the face-to-face meetings are few and far between. Instead of being filled with gratefulness for the opportunity to meet two of my longtime internet friends - which I should be - I'm feeling the empty, lifeless air of the miles that separate us.
Maybe a trip to Starbucks will fill that void...
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3 comments:
Oh, don't worry, I'm sure we shall meet again.... Maybe some day we will be speakers at these conferences, and our roads can cross.
I hear you about working your tail off.... and wasted words..and all the rest. I've just learned over the past few days that my first draft of my current WIP is basically worthless. There are a few scenes I can definitely use, but in order to tell the story I really want to tell, a lot of it just has to go out the window...
Ahhh, Tyler. He was tall, dark, extremely handsome & managed to throw Cath in the dirt at least once. And he always wore those white socks.
El - It was the white socks that got him into so much trouble.
Mad - that first draft isn't worthless! It got you to this point. My new mantra: I didn't waste my time, I prepared for this moment.
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