Posted by Christine on Oct 6, 2008 in General |
So this past weekend I attended the WOTS (or Writing on the Sound) writing conference in Edmonds Washington. It was a good experience and a motivating one as well. I have to admit it didn’t top last years SIWC from last year – but last year was in my firm belief a once in a life time unique and wonderful weekend. So I can’t compare anything to that fairly. Anyway I got to hear some great and motivating speakers including Robert Dugoni, who’s presentation I found one of the most useful and informative. Elizabeth Lyon who’s workshop was also very useful and interesting, and Marc Acito who gave one of the most humorous presentations I’ve ever been in – which worked well since his presentation was about humor. I found myself coming home to one single desire – to sit down and write. I began to ask myself why conferences leave me ready to write. I mean while I was there I revised the first two chapters of my Work in progress. Up until a few weeks ago I was feeling disappointed and discouraged by my writing. Now I want to jump in head first and make it better. So why? Personally I think there are three reason: 1) the focus – writing isn’t like a job where you go to work for 8 hours and sit and work. Especially not for writers who have other jobs or kids- or in my case both. You have to make time to write. The weekend conference focuses you and helps you cut out the time you need to focus on writing. 2) the motivation – you sit and listen to speakers, they talk about writing, and give you writing prompts to try and you actually get to write. Fun stuff – but also the ideas help you to be motivated. In fact I was thinking of turning one of the writing exercises I was given in one of the workshops into a short story. It was an idea I had never thought of before. 3) the dream – as I sat in session after session with successful writers with multiple books published I couldn’t help day dreaming. What would it be like when I came to the conference as a presenter rather then an attendee. Is it very different? Will people ask me to sign copies of my book and listen as I tell them about the years I wrote before I was published. The dream helps keep me going to the dream that someday someone will read my work and love it. So there is my personal opinion about why conferences work. Thank you Edmonds art counsel for the conference you put on. It was a motivating...
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Posted by Christine on Oct 5, 2008 in Randomness |
I just posted a short story – flash fiction – here on the site. It was short listed in a flash fiction competition this past spring. I wrote this piece in responce to a writing prompt in one of the classes I took at Gotham writers workshop. You can find the story under the writing prompt above – enjoy. Christine B.
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Posted by Christine on Sep 16, 2008 in General |
I have to say that today I am feeling pretty down. Last month I had three stories out on Submission. As of today I know that two of them have not been accepted. the third was the one I was least confident about. In addition I read recently on another writing site that writers should not have blogs. They commented that writers blogs were overdone and and unless you have something truly unique to say it wasn’t worth having one. I already know I don’t update this Blog frequently enough. So maybe I should ditch it completely. Not the web site – I still have lots of ideas for that, but the Blog part of it. So today I am feeling a bit discouraged, about writing in general and about getting published and even about what I am doing on the web. I mean – is it really worth all the effort. Once upon a time I wrote stories in my head, just for me. Maybe I should just go back to that. Some days I am not...
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Posted by Christine on Aug 15, 2008 in Randomness |
On Wednesday I got the results of the flash fiction contest I had entered back in May. I have to admit the results startled me. I had misread a previous e-mail telling me I was short listed. I assumed from this previous e-mail that I was in the top 25 and was just waiting for the contest results to see where I fell in the fifteen honorable mentions or in the top ten. It turns out that my understanding of the contest was not accurate. While I did pass the first round of judging I was not in the top twenty five. Those in the top twenty five received notice on Wednesday and I did not. I have to admit I am disappointed, it’s hard not to be. I am more disappointed because of my own misunderstanding then because I didn’t place. For the past month I have been waiting for the results assuming I was in the top 25. Only to discover I was never in the top 25. It was a bit of a let down. However I am excited that I got past the first round of judging. And hey since the story is no longer in any type of competition I can share it with you here. I will be posting it soon. Have a great day...
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Posted by Christine on Aug 13, 2008 in Randomness |
This October I will be attending two conferences. The first is the Write on the Sound a local conference. I will drive to this on both Saturday and Sunday. I’ve never attended this conference before so I am not entirely sure what to expect. I am very excited however and I hope to meet other local writers. This is also a smaller event – limited to 200 people then any I have attended before. I will also be attending the Surrey International Writers’ Conference at the end of October. I attended last year and met amazing people and learned a great deal about the industry and writing process. I am looking forward to attending again this year. I know that I will get a lot out of both these events, and in truth I expect them to become annual installments on my calendar. However I also plan to limit myself to these and only these two. Why? Well for starters they cost money. If I am ever published I have no doubt that it will be in part due to the connections I made and knowledge I gain at these events. At the moment though I am not earning anything from my writing. So that imposes a limit in itself. Also I don’t want to become a conference junkie. Someone I met at last years SWIC advised me against that. As an established author she told me she sees some people who come to these events year after year and never make progress in their writing. They enjoy the conference “high” and they make big plans but then go home and don’t do the single most important thing… write. She challenged me not to come to SWIC this year unless I brought a finished manuscript with me to pitch. That is one of the reasons I set goals for myself this year in the form of new years resolutions. I have to admit I am not ready to pitch the project I have been working on this year. However I have two months to get it ready and I plan to be. I have a pitch line ready and the project is in review so in the next two months I will be focusing on writing and working hard to get my story as clean and ready as it is humanly possible to make it so I am ready to pitch at SWIC. Maybe I will see some of you at one of these events. Happy Writing...
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