Busy Week and Writer's Conference

It is going to be a busy week.
I'm off to deliver the June issue of Two-Lane Livin' to the Sissonville Library in Kanawha County today.
I will be critiquing picture books submitted this week by my online critique group,
our weekly writing group meets on Tuesday and . . .
the annual West Virginia Writer's Conference is Friday, Saturday and Sunday!

I am looking forward to the conference.
As of right now, a few of the workshops I plan to attend are:
Pesky Parents - Middle Grade Writing, Nonfiction From Your Own Lives, People's Choice Prose, Time Management for Writers, Children's Book Publishing and Food and Spiritual Writing.

Of course, all of this can change as they change the schedule and I change my mind.

I hate it when they schedule two workshops that I want to attend in the same time slot, but it always happens and there isn't much we can do about it.

I need to go through my stories and pick out one to read at the People's Choice Prose workshop. We are given a certain amount of time, usually 5 minutes, to read a story we have written. At the end of the workshop, attendees vote on paper for their favorite three and the winners are announced at the Saturday evening banquet.

I also have to look for my best writing (poetry and prose) to put up on the Writer's Wall for people to read and vote on.  In previous years I have received 2nd place on the Prose Wall and on the Poetry Wall. Keep your fingers crossed that I will pick out a piece that will hook the attendees into voting for it.

What is happening with you this week? Anyone else going to the conference?


Posted by Janet F. Smart on Creative Writing in the Blackberry Patch
©Janet F. Smart

More Writing Workshop Info

I attended a picture book workshop conducted by children's author, Cheryl Ware. But if you are not a picture book writer, please read on, I think the information will help you with any genre of writing you choose to write.

Here is a group picture of the attendees of her workshop. Cheryl is the tall lady in the middle, I am in the pink shirt beside of her.



I thoroughly enjoyed this workshop. She came with a pile of picture books to share with us. She read a few of her favorites.

She told us something that I think is very hard to do. She said to find the holes in the market - find what hasn't been written. I think this applies to all genres of writing, don't you?

She showed us some books that she stated when she first saw them, she didn't think they were the greatest. But when she read them to small children, they loved them!

They shouted out answers when she read the text to them!
They became involved in the reading!
They wanted it read over and over again!

I think that is what we want to accomplish with any of our books. We want our reader to become involved with the story and for them to want to read it over and over again.

One of her favorite books : THE DOT
If you write picture books, but haven't read this one, go to the library and check it out.
It is so simple, yet so good!

Some very good advice from her:

Start your story on a day that something is different in their life.
Ending should be expected, but a surprise.

As you can see, I think you can take this information and apply it to whatever type of writing you do, whether it be for adults or children.

Some of Cheryl's published books are:

Flea Circus Summer,
Catty-Cornered,
Venola in Love, and
Venola the Vegetarian

Her stories introduce you to Venola May Cutright, a spunky 11 year old girl.

I hope you read something from this post that will help you with your writing.

Writer's Conference Almost Here!

The West Virginia Writer's Conference is this weekend!

I must be thinking about it a lot, because I dreamed about it last night.
It wasn't a dream I would repeat before eating breakfast, though. I'm a little superstitious and I didn't want it to come true.

Did you ever have one of those dreams where everything went wrong and you couldn't wait to wake up?

I was a mess in my dream. I arrived there late, didn't remember to register, forgot my manuscript I was going to bring and phoned home and asked my son to find it on my computer and bring it to me (that's a laugh, I would probably still be waiting on it after the conference was over).

Was I glad when I woke up. And I've already had breakfast, so I don't have to worry about it coming true. I'm really not that superstitious, but it's better to be safe than sorry.

I still haven't memorized my pitch and probably won't. I'll have it all typed out and with me (unless I forget it) so I can glance at it when I'm having one of those senior moments.

I hope the ringing in my ear is gone by the weekend. I've had it for almost a month now and finally went to the doctor on Monday. He said I have alergies, lots of fluid in my ear (which he thinks is what is causing the ringing) and has me on three different medications. It sounds like I have a swarm of insects singing in my ears!

I think the way I am right now, I would make a good character to write about in a story. The funny lady with the ringing ears that is driving her and everyone else around her crazy.

On another note, I am very lucky! I only live a few miles down the road from our annual West Virginia Writer's Conference. It takes place in beautiful Cedar Lakes.

I will be attending several workshops given by Kaylan Adair of Candlewick and Cheryl Ware a children's writer from West Virginia.

Wish me luck, silent ears and calm nerves when I make my pitch.