The belated #wdnwc14 day 3 post

So I was supposed to finish off my post on Sunday, except that after rushing off to the airport (spending more than 1 hour in the shuttle to get there), I was hungry. And then I started reading Jeff Gerke's "The First 50 Pages" and then when I finally got back to San Jose, we headed off to dinner and The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (which was full of plot holes).

Anyway, so Day 3.
First session of the day was lots of dirty little publishing secrets revealed by Phil Sexton, followed by revision tips from Barbara O'Neal. I'd say one of the most informative (for me) slots was the one after that, by Carlie Webber, regarding the query letters and agents, though I don't know if I will ever use that information, seeing... I don't even know if agents exist in Malaysia. Unless I'm trying to publish it in the USA first. Hmmmmm.

In between sessions I was eavesdropping on people talking about science fiction. Haha, well not really eavesdropping. They were right beside me and they knew I was listening. I think.

Final plus point of this writer's conference - got invited into a critique group on facebook. Let's see where it goes! :D

Day two of #wdnwc14: of workshops and friends

Today's programme was chock full of really informative sessions. I don't know if I've finished processing everything yet, but I can say this - at every session I feel like a sponge, soaking up stuff, wondering if I'm going to start leaking. Which isn't a bad thing.

Also, I'm hearing stuff that makes me go 'hey, so maybe if I applied *this* and added *that* it would make my story go much better. 

One was definitely the Writing Active Setting session, which talked about how even how you describe a scene can be put to good use to show facets of your character, or even build conflict and tension. 

Bits of the plotting workshop tied back to Larry Brooks' session yesterday about the first plot point and I'm going 'those bits in my NaNoWriMo drafts that I thought were conflicts... I think they were really the first plot point or maybe even just an inciting incident. No wonder it seemed so stuck.'

But it's not just been workshops. In between I've made friends, Howard, Luke and Naomi, to name a few, and met a fellow accountant who's in the middle of edits (whose name I forgot. Oops.) 

Looking forward to the final few sessions tomorrow (no Hugh Howey, bummer) and maybe making a few more connections before heading back to San Jose and being boring. 

Day one of #wdnwc14!

I had been thinking of live blogging the conference but I decided against bringing my laptop (one less thing to worry about) so I'm basically pretty much old school with pen and paper. 

Anyway it has been a mix of anticipation and terror coming here but I'm glad I made it! Thoroughly enjoyed the sessions with Larry Brooks (on structure) and Jonathan Maberry (opening keynote). Probably should have hung around and/or visited booths and gotten things signed but LK was waiting for me in the lobby! LK was one of my first writerly friends on twitter and though she wasn't attending the conference, she braved traffic and drove about an hour plus to meet me and have dinner. *so touched*

So I'm just tuckered out right now and going to sleep. Tomorrow should be exciting :D