Bibliofeast 2013

Women's National Book Association
Monday, October 14, 6-9 pm
Maggiano's Little Italy, Charlotte

 

Jamie Mason and me

 

Mary Struble Deery and me

 Susan Gregg Gilmore and me

What a great event! The food was AMAZING. The authors jumped from table to table answering any questions we had about what it was like to be a writer.  Sort of a musical chairs type of thing.  Somebody won a Kobo. Authors signed the books I bought. Good times! 

Jamie Mason said she got the idea for her book from a newspaper article title.  Cassandra King said her book is a loose modern adaptation of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca. Tommy Hays told us writing a young adult novel was no different than writing an adult book for him.  He didn't change the level of vocabulary or anything like that. Wilton Barnhardt said he taught creative writing and NC State and there was a short story writing contest we needed to enter by next Monday.

This year's writers and books were the following:

Wilton Barnhardt, Lookaway, Lookaway

Diane Chamberlain, Necessary Lies

Nora Gaskin, Time of Death and Until Proven

Susan Gregg Gilmore, The Funeral Dress

Tommy Hays, What I Came to Tell You

Cassandra King, Moonrise

Rebecca Lee, Bobcat and Other Stories

Jamie Mason, Three Graves Full

John Milliken Thompson, Love and Lament

It was the fourth year the WNBA put on this event but my first time.  I hope I always get to go.

 

How to Live Like an Artist

A Workshop led by Elaine Connors
http://thewisewomanway.com/
Thursday, July 18th, 2013
6:30-8:30 pm
Carolina Learning Connection

"Being an artist is not about being able to draw a straight line, it's about self-expression." --Elaine Connors.

"How to Live Like an Artist" was an excellent workshop led by Elaine Connors. We discussed how artists make artistic decisions, how rituals are important, and how to listen to our inner compass.  "How to Think Like an Artist" might have been a better title for me because it wasn't about how to apply for grants or how to divide your time or how to use paint, etc.  It was a lesson on how "to be."

"Rituals can be anything from spraying yourself with rose water to lighting a candle.  It's important though to let your body know that this is what your doing now... listening for the answer to 'What do I do next?'"

We started with a breathing exercise.  It's so hard for me to sit still and be still so meditation always makes we want to bolt out the door, but I do want to explore it a little bit more.  It is definitely a way to start listening to your inner compass.

My inner compass has been telling me to avoid writing altogether and lately I'm much happier playing guitar.  But I know myself, and I know that I will need to get back to writing soon to feel happier too.

I talked about my resistance to "showing up for the muse" and Elaine suggested the book The War of Art by Steven Pressfield which I will have to check out.

I've read The Artist Way by Julia Cameron who suggests writing "morning pages": journaling three handwritten pages at the beginning of each day and taking yourself on artist dates by yourself at least once a week.  I miss journaling and do want to get back to that.

She said the best video on the subject of creativity is a Ted Talks by Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote Eat, Pray, Love:






Another idea we talked about was the idea of Kaizen, a Japanese term that means "breaking it down into small pieces.  Writer Anne Lamott is famous for talking about this concept in her book on writing, Bird by Bird.  She is also known for saying it's part of the process to have "shitty first drafts."

We did a bunch more exercises that were very helpful in visualizing what you want to do to be creative and now I'll just have to follow through...

I'll sit down.  Carry out my rituals.  Ask myself what is the next step.  And wait for the answer.

John Hartness's Self Publishing Workshop

Saturday, June 15, 2013
Self Publishing for Fun and Profit
Workshop by John Hartness
Carolina Learning Connection
2311 Tryon Street, Charlotte, NC 28203

 

left to right: V. R. Marple, Phil Blesher

Latonia N. Bills, John Hartness, Mary Ventre, and Jeanine Angelo

Today's conference was a lot of fun and very informative.  John Hartness has been self-publishing for four years and has a 30 book inventory in the urban fantasy/ horror genre.

Talking "shop" makes me happy.  I learned that Walmart is the biggest book dealer, selling more books than Amazon and that both Walmart and Amazon don't report to the New York Times bestseller's list.  I learned that next May, I should go to Concarolinas.  I learned that since ebooks have been on the market, more and more books "sell through" (make enough money in royalties to pay back the publisher's advance that they give to writers upfront).

"The person with the most power is the one who can walk away from the table." --John Hartness 

Another great quote from our workshop leader: "If the main character hates the monster, it's horror; if he loves the monster, it's romance."

For more detailed information on this topic, I highly recommend taking the class.  John Hartness says he'll be repeating his writing classes in September.

Two Editors and a Comma Dialogue Workshop

April 20, 2013
1:30-3:30
Two Editors and a Comma
Dialogue Workshop
Quail Hollow Estates Clubhouse
Charlotte, NC

Yesterday, I went to a great workshop on dialogue led by Carin Siegfried and Betsy Thorpe, Two Editors and a Comma (Facebook page).

 

Carin Siegfried and Betsy Thorpe

They were extremely well-prepared and all the participants walked away with a stack of handouts.

Carin slipped us into the topic by going over dialogue punctuation on one of their daughter's whiteboard.  Then they bounced other topics related to dialogue back and forth such as layering narrative with dialogue and not overusing dialogue tags such as "exclaimed," etc.--using "said" is just fine.

I met a great group of women which is always nice. And there were very good homemade chocolate chip cookies and iced tea. The room itself was full of beautiful natural light and next to a "plond" (pond/lake) as Betsy called it.

Many great books with great dialogue were mentioned but the one that intrigued me the most was Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell.  "Remember, it did win the Pulitzer Prize," Betsy said.

Betsy also mentioned a YA novel, Hysteria, by a local author Megan Miranda that sounded interesting about a girl who murdered her boyfriend but can't remember it well.

Here's what's twirling in my head the day after: Don't bother putting dialogue tags in the middle of a sentence, sentence fragments are okay in fiction as long as they're not accidental, and the publishers of Fifty Shades of Grey did not have a lot of time to edit because it went straight from the web to print and nobody wanted to lose the momentum there. "Otherwise it probably would be half the size."--invisible dialogue tag there because I can't remember who said that.

Betsy said that she and Carin will try to do a workshop quarterly.  I'm looking forward to seeing what they do next.