My First Writing Conference In Review

Well, Las Vegas is in my rearview mirror and along with it the 2016 Las Vegas Writer's Conference.

I had a great time, and I am very glad that I went through with it. I am particularly glad that I got to meet, pitch, and learn from real-life literary agents. I am at that point in my writing career where I am sort of hyper-focused on landing an agent. Yes, I know there are next levels after that, but for now I can't worry about those. And when almost all of my interaction with agents is through sending queries and receiving form rejections or silence in reply, it feels like trying to read tea leaves. Getting to hear things straight from the horse's mouth was invaluable.

As far as the craft workshops, they were good. I think they would have been super helpful for me like 4-5 years ago. As it was, they were mostly just refreshers of stuff that I've seen elsewhere. And so I am still in the position of trying to figure out the how of craft rather than the what. But that's a lifelong journey, no?

I got up at 6 AM on Thursday for the 5-hour drive to Vegas. After checking in, I hit up Edit Yourself into Print (give by an agent, one of my favorites of the conference), How to Write a Blurb that Sells, and Before You Jump into Self-Publishing (a sobering look at the harsh reality of self-pub). Then there was a happy hour and ice breaker event. Which was good, but also really long. By the time 7 PM rolled around, I was desperate for some alone time! Had to hit up the gym for my training plan, and by the time I got out of the shower at 9:30 PM or so, I was done for the day. Gotta love the light and music show outside my window at 10 PM as I was trying to sleep!

Friday was an all-day affair at the conference. Breakfast with some words from an indie author on the faculty, then 14 Things to Revise in Your Manuscript, my first pitch session, and The Art of Pacing and Tension. Lunch had a first page panel (5 of the faculty read first pages in front of everyone and pointed out where they would stop reading and why). Then Getting Sassy with Subtext, Story Engineering, and Write Dialogue Like a Playwright. Dinner had another first page panel. These panels were some of the best info I got the entire weekend. I only wish my pages would have been drawn!

Friday night after dinner I escaped for some alone time on the Strip. Walked around for a couple hours, watched the fountains at the Bellagio, and ate a second dinner of burger, fries, and boozed-up milkshake. Totally worth it!

Saturday was the last day of the conference. Breakfast had another indie author from the faculty speaking, then World Building in Fiction, How to Hook an Agent, and my second agent pitch. I skipped out to go for a training run and check out of my hotel room, so I caught only the very end of the lunch panel, which was a couple agents talking about how to spot scams. Then the afternoon was The Agent/Client Relationship and Whose Story is This? That finished out the workshops, and then there was a dinner with a keynote address from Larry Brooks. After that, I had to head out, as I had another 5-hour drive!

As you can see, it was a super packed weekend. There were so many great faculty members, awesome fellow writers, and lots of good choices for the workshops. It was rather a whirlwind of a weekend, but in a good way!

Now to swallow my doubt and send out the requested materials...eek!

Reports from the conference and thoughts in the aftermath.

Five Favorite Writing Quotes

5. “There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.” –Ernest Hemingway

This is a great quote for those days when writing feels hard and, because it feels hard, you start to question the entire edifice. Maybe you aren’t meant to be a writer, if writing is hard for you. Writing is easy for good writers, right? Well, some people think Mr. Hemingway was a pretty good writer…

I don’t think writing has to be a masochistic exercise of bleeding all over typewriter (or Scrivener, or whatever), but if it is, that is not unusual. It’s not the end of the world. It’s a normal feeling for writers of every skill level. So open up that vein, but don’t quit!

4. “If you don’t have time to read, you don’t have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.” –Stephen King

I know, I know. The last thing you need is another thing to fail at, another area where you aren’t doing what you need to. But sorry, I am going with Mr. King on this one. Reading is so integral to writing. It’s important on the business side. You need to know where your book fits into the market in order to pitch it, to market it, to sell it. And so you need to know the market, which is just a fancy way of saying read! But it’s also important on the craft side. Reading is some of the best writing education you can give yourself, especially critical reading. Look at how other authors create tension or dialogue that sparks right off the page. Look at how other authors make you check to see if the book is ever going to end and skim yet another section. Learn what you love and what you don’t. And for me, reading is the ultimate form of inspiration. Reading a good book makes my inner writer yearn to be set free and create. It replenishes the wells of creativity that I drain during writing.

3. “We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.” –Ernest Hemingway

I am a perfectionist. That isn’t always a bad thing. Striving for perfection can be a way to rise to the next level, to overcome obstacles. But for my own mental health, I have to remember that perfection is an illusion. There is always something else to learn, always some way that I could be better. I am still an apprentice. But! So is everyone else. We are all apprentices. There is no need to castigate myself for failure to achieve mastery, because that is impossible. I will keep learning, I will keep striving, and I will take pleasure in the process, not despair.

2. “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” –Ray Bradbury

Oh, this one. Cuts me right to the core with its truthiness. Writing as an industry is so, so hard. I’ve written for my entire life, and so far I don’t have much to show for it besides a pile of unpublished manuscripts. Querying is the epitome of soul-sucking. You have to find that inner source of joy, the intoxication of writing. Otherwise there are too many opportunities to give up. Too many ways to realize that the odds are very much against you. But writing is always there. It is always available to you. You are a writer, and you write, and that in itself must be enough to carry you through all the times (the many, many times) when everything else is going against you and your writing.

1. “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” –Dr. Seuss (or maybe Bernard Baruch?)

This isn’t necessarily a writing quote so much as it is a life quote. And it’s one that has resonated with me since the first time I heard it. I’ll be honest—I’m a bit of a strange duck. And I have social anxiety, so getting along with other people can feel like a monumental task. But when I’m getting down on myself for being awkward or weird or whatever, I just have to remember that those who truly care don’t care!

But beyond that, it is a writing quote too. It can be so easy to get caught up in the paralysis of what other people will think about your writing. Whether you are going to offend someone you care about it. If agents and editors will laugh at the premise before they even finish hearing your pitch. Whether it will be received well by readers. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t consider the impact of your work and take that into account, but at the end of the day, if it’s something you need to write, then write it. Don’t let the paralysis win.

And if you want to hear me talk about all of this as well, today's post is also a video! It's two-for-one writing quote happiness!

Hello!

Today is my BIRTHDAY! Huzzah!

I know lots of adults think birthdays are meh, but I love them. A whole day dedicated to me and no one else. Well, everyone else who shares my birthday and (some years) Labor Day and lots of other things. But it's fun to be queen for a day, and I enjoy celebrating milestones like anniversaries and birthdays. Making it through one more year alive is pretty awesome!

Anyway, in honor of my birthday, I decided I would finally properly introduce myself with an "about me" vlog. So...hello!

#FlashFridayFootage: "The Walls Will Fall"

Happy Friday!! Thanks to the magic of modern technology, I am not actually sitting on my bedroom floor at this exact moment (I should be getting my makeup done and hanging around getting ready for one of my bestie's wedding!), but I am still celebrating the #FlashFridayFootage vibe with all of you lovely folks.

Cheers to the freakin' weekend!

#FlashFridayFootage: "Virgin Magic"

Hello! After a little break last weekend for the U.S. holiday (fireworks galore!), #FlashFridayFootage is back this week with one of the tougher flash stories I've written. Most of the stories on #FlashFridayFootage are written expressly for this purpose, but this story was one I wrote a long time ago before I started #FlashFridayFootage, and I shopped it around a bit before deciding its best home was right here with my other flash stories.

Happy Friday!

 

#FlashFridayFootage: "Day in the Dog Park"

Congratulations on making it through another week! Or not, depending on how alive you are while reading this. Or whether it's your weekend. But for many of us—huzzah, we survived! Let's celebrate by watching videos on our breaks and fantasizing about all the ice cream we're going to eat. The pinnacle of a good weekend's plans, IMO.

In any case, enjoy this installment of #FlashFridayFootage!

#FlashFridayFootage: "Buttons"

Huzzah, Friday again! An extra special Friday for me, since I am taking a half day from the day job and heading out to Denver for a friend's bachelorette party. It should be a Very Good Time and I am quite excited. But first--how could I kick off a good weekend without a little #FlashFridayFootage?

Yep, it feels so good to have this going again, and I hope you enjoy this week's story. Congratulations on surviving another week, and I'll see you next Friday!

(And if videos aren't your thing, you can always catch my flash fiction in print version over at Wattpad.)

#FlashFridayFootage: "The Light at Night"

Yes, you read that title right. After a tiny hiatus, #FlashFridayFootage is making its victorious 2015 comeback! Every Friday, except for the last of the month, will feature a brand new video with a brand new reading of a brand new story. Exciting stuff!

To be honest, one of the delays in bringing back #FlashFridayFootage was that I don't think anyone cares about it. It is a fair bit of work (not even including writing the stories), and I don't get very many views. But I thought about it a lot and decided that I have fun making the videos, so I'll keep doing it for me. And if someone else out there gets a couple minutes of pleasure from them too, that's just icing on the cake!

So feel free to scroll on by if it's not your thing, but if you want to check it out, here is the first 2015 #FlashFridayFootage video!

Life-Cycle of a Nora Novel

Okay, maybe a Nora novel isn't an officially recognized category—yet!

In any case, I have a pretty methodical way that I go about writing a novel, refined over several manuscripts. So I thought I would share that method in case it is helpful and/or interesting for anyone else!

The video describes it pretty well, but I thought I would also include a short summary here, in case you don't want to watch me blabber for 11 minutes. Or are at work, not that any of us would be thinking about writing at our day jobs!

The ideas for my novels usually get entered into my ideas notebook long before I start writing or even planning them. It's an outlet for all those plot monkeys that demand to be written while I'm trying to finish something else. There are all kind of random things in my notebook, ranging from snippets of dialogues to character sketches and title ideas. For example:

A long stretch of moonlit road. Dry grasslands as far as the eye can see. A lone horse rider, the clop of hooves a slow staccato, the rider slumped in the saddle. A faint wind stirs dust along the road.

This is written in my notebook with zero context. Just an image I had one day a few years ago. Anyway, I take one of these ideas that I want to work on, and I start to brainstorm. I like to do the one sentence premise -> paragraph -> plot summary progression. Then I write an outline. An honest-to-goodness, I.A.i.a. outline. From that outline, I create an Excel spreadsheet scene list. Here is where I plan out the details of the timeline, the POV, who is where, and what happens.

Then I write!

For the most part, I stick to that scene list. I guess that may seem boring to some, but for me, I like the structure it provides. It's like a checklist—butt in chair, write this scene. If I get wild inspiration, I'll pause to work it in, but that just isn't the way I normally work. Eventually, voila! A draft!

The revision process is pretty simple. Read through it, take notes. Create a new Excel sheet and, from those notes, come up with a revision plan checklist. Copy the scene list and modify it as needed to accommodate the changes. Then go back and make all the edits! X them off as I go, so I get to see my Excel percentage go up. Rinse and repeat until it feels done. Somewhere in there, try to get feedback from beta readers to incorporate into the revision notes.

Once I'm happy with it, write a query and a synopsis, and begin sending it out! At this point, the novel is basically done. If I get a partial or full request (very rarely...), I don't go back and re-read or edit, I just send what I have. Only if I am having a really bad response do I then go back and maybe do another edit.

So that's it! That's as far as it goes for me, for now. Someday I hope I will have to worry about agent edits and editor edits and all that fun stuff, but that's a future!Nora problem. Right-now-Nora needs to worry about writing that damn synopsis for Novel 7 and picking out an idea to flesh out for Novel 8...

#FlashFridayFootage: "A New Planet"

Happy Friday, folks! Hopefully many of you will get a chance to take a little break in the upcoming weeks. (I am using all of my PTO to take two days off so I can go back to Iowa! I think I must be crazy.) In any case, #FFF will be on a little break, but will be back in 2015 for more flashes of SFF for your weekend enjoyment.

Happy holidays!

Mugs, Mugs, Mugs!

Okay, it felt so good to get my last confession off my chest that I have to go again. Yes, my friends, it is time for me to stand up and say: I LOVE MUGS!

They are beautiful containers designed for hot beverages, what isn't there to love? If you're really feeling fancy, they can even be used to make cakes! They look great on shelves, make great souvenirs, but yet are still so practical. Plus I feel extra writerly when I have a mug on my desk. No, I don't think I'm ashamed of my mug collection one bit.

So I will shout it from the rooftops--or at least YouTube!

One Third NaNo Check-in

Since today is a nice even number, thanks to our decimal system, as well as a nice even fraction of the month, I thought it a great time to check in on that frantic writing beast that is NaNoWriMo.

This is a pretty critical time in the life of a NaNoer. There are three main possibilities of where you are at, and I’ll look at each of those and the way forward.

1. You’re behind (<16,667 words). This may range from lagging a bit (say, 15kish) to “oh gods what am I doing” (say, 0) or anywhere in between. You’re probably frustrated about being behind. You thought you were going to slay the great NaNo beast, and instead it’s kind of kicking your ass. You may be thinking about giving up—you may have given up already! But in any case, things are not hopeless! Even if you are in our “oh gods” category, you could hit 50k by writing 2,500 words a day from here on out. That is completely doable. Besides, chances are you’ve written more than zero words, so 2,500 per day is the absolute, worst case scenario. Now let’s say that you’re in the lagging category, sitting right around 15k words. This could be a potentially more dangerous zone, believe it or not. You’re only 1 day of words behind. There is absolutely plenty of time to catch up—and you know it. So stop telling yourself that you’ll catch up later. Remember, the end of November tends to be busier than the beginning for a lot of people. Catch up now. No more excuses, you are within striking range!

2. You’re right on track (16,000-17,000 words). Good job! You likely have a schedule and a plan and are sticking to it. Maybe you hit exactly 1,667 every day and are chugging along. Maybe you’re a bit more erratic, but every few days you make sure you hit that goal line. Maybe you just had one really good day on November 1! In any case, you’re on track. Keep doing what you’re doing, but beware of burnout. You haven’t left yourself any margin, so you need to be good about sticking to your plan/schedule. But don’t worry too much, pat yourself on the back, and keeping NaNoing strong.

3. You’re ahead (>16,667 words). Congratulations! You’ve been a whirlwind of writing for the past 10 days. Maybe you want to finish early enough to enjoy Thankgsiving pie in peace. Maybe your personal goal is >50k. Maybe you’re just so in love with your new novel that it demands to be written and you must comply. You probably don’t need much advice, but I’ll just caution you against resting on your laurels. Building up a buffer so that you can enjoy a weekend off is great, but when that weekend stretches to 2 weeks…just remember, you haven’t won until 50k! (I mean, officially. I think anyone who participates has won!)

So there we have it. No matter if you’ve written 0 words or 49,999 words, your November writing adventure can end in that elusive win—or not. It’s up to you, and I have full faith!

 As a bonus, here is a pep talk I made a couple years ago, in case that sort of thing helps you. Happy NaNoing!

#FlashFridayFootage: "Mind Over Matter"

We made it! Friday at last. Let's celebrate by kicking back and traveling to the future! Join me for a quick trip away from the here and now.

Have a fantastic weekend!

#FlashFridayFootage: "Misty Morning"

I would not have believed that the only posts for weeks in a row would be #FlashFridayFootage! Phew, I need to get some of my other ideas down on paper (er, screen?). But in the meantime, it is Friday, so here's another #FlashFridayFootage!

Enjoy the weekend!

#FlashFridayFootage: "The Danger of Sleeping with Gods"

Woohoo, I am not-sick enough to make a video! Cold from hell really laid me out last week (and is still persistently lingering, awesomely), so I am glad to finally get a new #FlashFridayFootage up.

And in case you want to read some of my flash fiction stories (including both #FlashFridayFootage stories and other brand new ones!), you can check out my work over at Wattpad. I'll be posting new stuff every Saturday!

Also, on a fun with numbers note, I post #FlashFridayFootage at 10:10 AM on Fridays. And today is 10/10! So it's extra special!

So without further ado, here is "The Danger of Sleeping with Gods"!

Have a great (and safe) weekend!

#FlashFridayFootage: "Sisyphean Hopes"

Friday again?! For a week that consisted of some tough days, it went by really fast! Hopefully it'll slow down for me to enjoy the weekend. But before that, take 2 minutes to escape this world with some flash fiction as part of my #FlashFridayFootage project!

Have a good weekend!

#FlashFridayFootage: "Transformation"

Hello, it's been a few weeks since you've been able to see my ridiculous face and hear a story! That's what I get for moving and starting a new job at the same time--not to mention lots of writing and bunny care and now training for a race. Phew! Even a 2 minute video is hard to do with all that. But I'm finally settling in, and #FlashFridayFootage is here for the long haul!

Have a great weekend, everyone!

#FlashFridayFootage: "Emily and Brody"

TGIFFF! Because #FlashFridayFootage is clearly the highlight of Friday.

Thanks to the wonders of post scheduling and Tweetdeck, I am currently somewhere high above the United States on my way to Chicago for a bachelorette party—but you can be enjoying my reading of the flash science fiction story "Emily and Brody."

Have an excellent weekend!

#FlashFridayFootage: "Selma 39"

It can't be Friday already?!

Being currently unemployed, I have lost all concept of days of the week. Time might be passing in some weird alternate dimension for all I know. But the computer says it is Friday, so that means it's time for #FlashFridayFootage! Woohoo!

Whistling...?

Have a good weekend!

#FlashFridayFootage: "The Ferry"

I am so excited for WEEK TWO of my new series #FlashFridayFootage.

I'll be honest, guys: I am not a video editor. I know, I know, it doesn't show at all, right? Ha! In any case, I appreciate your patience as I work out some of the kinks with recording videos. And just keep in mind that a little cheesiness is classic SFF!

This week's story is called "The Ferry." Take it away, Nora!