Ramblings from a writer's conference...
Here is a rambling post about the William Patterson University Spring Writers Conference that I attended on Saturday, April 18. Sometimes when I go to writing conferences I get wrapped up in taking notes, but this time I sat back and just absorbed myself in the day.
The keynote speaker, Porochista Khapour, author of The Last Illusion was inspiring, generous, and interesting.
Here are some things I took away from the keynote speech…
- Social media while great, is an artificial pulse… Porchista advises us to slow down. - Encourages you to get out of the house. Talk to people. - Position yourself to be lucky…how do you do this? BY getting out of the house. By saying yes to things. - Give yourself permission not to write everyday. But live life everyday. Read everyday.
Then I attended Porochista workshop on writing endings. We read endings of a couple of books and talked about different endings and well, okay – maybe I should have taken notes…
Then we broke for lunch.
Porochista gravitated with a group of us outside of the classroom and we ended up lunching together with my fellow writer friend Marianne Sciucco, workshop teacher/poet Soroya Shalforoosh, and two other lovely ladies.
The topics of discussion ranged from women writers supporting each other, to books, to life. I really could've spoke with these women all day.
After lunch I attended Finding and Writing Your Inner Teenager with Robin Wasserman, author of several YA novels, including the The Seven Deadly Sins series.
I took this workshop because I’m planning to write a Young Adult story over the summer.
Robin handed out several pieces of writing about teenagers and we had to guess if it was from adult fiction or from a YA novel. It was a great exercise.I took these one-line notes…- nail the details of teenage life- flavor of way teenager talk- teenager have a small life but big dreams- it’s either a sunny day or doom and gloom- every emotion is operatic- teenagers weigh their choices differently than adults- lots of decisions aren’t up to them- try to emotionally connect to who we were as teens- ask what is the relevancy of family/adults to the story and if relevant do not make adults cookie cutter.
- YA is a lot about 'firsts' .. first date…first kiss, etc.
I feel better prepared to write this YA! Thanks Robin!
It was a great day. So glad I 'got out of the house'. I picked up a copy of The Last Illusion, which I can't wait to delve into. I couldn't help though to take a peek at the opening line...
Exactly ONCE UPON A time in a small village in Northern Iran, a child of the wrong color was born.
The keynote speaker, Porochista Khapour, author of The Last Illusion was inspiring, generous, and interesting.
Here are some things I took away from the keynote speech…
- Social media while great, is an artificial pulse… Porchista advises us to slow down. - Encourages you to get out of the house. Talk to people. - Position yourself to be lucky…how do you do this? BY getting out of the house. By saying yes to things. - Give yourself permission not to write everyday. But live life everyday. Read everyday.
Then I attended Porochista workshop on writing endings. We read endings of a couple of books and talked about different endings and well, okay – maybe I should have taken notes…
Then we broke for lunch.
Porochista gravitated with a group of us outside of the classroom and we ended up lunching together with my fellow writer friend Marianne Sciucco, workshop teacher/poet Soroya Shalforoosh, and two other lovely ladies.
The topics of discussion ranged from women writers supporting each other, to books, to life. I really could've spoke with these women all day.
After lunch I attended Finding and Writing Your Inner Teenager with Robin Wasserman, author of several YA novels, including the The Seven Deadly Sins series.
I took this workshop because I’m planning to write a Young Adult story over the summer.
Robin handed out several pieces of writing about teenagers and we had to guess if it was from adult fiction or from a YA novel. It was a great exercise.I took these one-line notes…- nail the details of teenage life- flavor of way teenager talk- teenager have a small life but big dreams- it’s either a sunny day or doom and gloom- every emotion is operatic- teenagers weigh their choices differently than adults- lots of decisions aren’t up to them- try to emotionally connect to who we were as teens- ask what is the relevancy of family/adults to the story and if relevant do not make adults cookie cutter.
- YA is a lot about 'firsts' .. first date…first kiss, etc.
I feel better prepared to write this YA! Thanks Robin!
It was a great day. So glad I 'got out of the house'. I picked up a copy of The Last Illusion, which I can't wait to delve into. I couldn't help though to take a peek at the opening line...
Exactly ONCE UPON A time in a small village in Northern Iran, a child of the wrong color was born.
No comments have been added yet.
