California Conferences

With a debut novel coming out next year, I've been thinking about how to allocate my travel budget for conferences and literature festivals. For now, events on the West Coast have priority since it's more likely that I can find roommates and carpool buddies for these.

But I was surprised how many events there are that I've never even heard of--it seems like with Twitter and Facebook, so many things show up on our radar these days. But maybe that's the problem--it's harder to pick the relevant things out of the noise.

Most of these are for 2015, but there are still some upcoming in 2014. I've included those as a guideline for when they can expect to schedule the event for next year:

Sacramento Region:
California Capital Book Festival, Sacramento (Oct 25-26, 2014)
Wizard World Comic Con, Sacramento, Jun 19-21, 2015
SCBWI California North Central: Spring Spirit Conference: Citrus Heights, CA, May 2, 2015


SF Bay Area:
SCBWI California: San Francisco North and East Bay: Fall Conference,
(Oct 17-18, 2014)
SCBWI California: San Francisco South: Golden Gate Conference, last
weekend in Feb 2015
Litquake, San Francisco, (Oct 10-18, 2014)
ALA annual conference in San Francisco, CA June 25-30, 2015
San francisco writers conference, Feb 12-15, 2015

Northern CA:
Mendocino Coast Writer's Conference, Fort Bragg, CA (July 31-Aug 2, 2014)

Southern CA:
Big Orange Bookfest in Orange, CA (Oct 11-13, 2013?)
LA Times Festival of Books, April 18-19, 2015
Orange County Children's Book festival, Sept?
SCBWI California: Central Coast: Writer's Day, Thousand Oaks, CA (Oct.
25, 2014)
SCBWI California: Los Angeles County: Writer's Day, San Gabriel, CA
(March 22-23, 2014)
SCBWI California: San Diego: Conference and Intensive, (March 1-2, 2014)

Other West Coast states:
SCBWI Western Washington: Writing and Illustrating for Children
Conference: Redmond, WA (April 12-13, 2014)
SCBWI Oregon: Spring Conference: Wilsonville, OR, May 30-31, 2015

Did I miss any? Are you planning on going to any of these? Please share in the comments!

OA Today & A Shoutout for a Special Conference

It's my day on Operation Awesome, and I've posted about cons (conferences and conventions), so click on over and see!

I also wanted to use this space for a couple of reminders:

Firstly, there may still be spaces left in Adventures In YA Publishing's Agent-Judged Pitch+First Page Contest so if you have a finished MG or YA manuscript, maybe you want to enter! I'm one of the judges for the blogger round once again.

Also, our regional chapter (California: North/Central) of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators has a stellar lineup this year for the spring conference. Jay Asher! Nikki Grimes! Agent Tricia Lawrence of Erin Murphy Literary Agency! And so much more. Last I heard, there were still around 40 spaces left, but it usually sells out well before the conference. If you're looking for an information-packed, one-day conference, this is a great choice!

Of Pitches and Conferences

Last Saturday was the Spring Spirit Conference for our regional chapter of SCBWI, and WOW what a conference! This was my third year as a volunteer and although I felt like I made myself useful, it's nothing to all the work the real people in charge put in. Thanks to our RAs and planners, who performed marvelously under pressure!

We had a different location this year and I never want to go back to our old one--this one had powerful, free wi-fi and a nice layout. Plus, since we had a more flexible space it was done as tracks; you could choose novel, picture book, or nonfiction.

As a shepherd for two speakers, I got to see a little bit of everything. Started with an Early Bird session on perfecting your pitch with Rose Cooper and got to participate in the feedback a bit. It might have just given me the confidence to propose my own workshop on queries for next year. (And Rose, if you read this and wonder why I dragged out my tablet in the middle of the workshop, I was trying to find the link for a Pitch Generator I'd seen. Couldn't remember where, but it was on Carissa Taylor's blog.)

Then on to a picture book session with Gianna Marino, which was a great take on how writers can inspire illustrators by using their words in, um, inspiring ways. But she said it better.

But the highlights of the conference for me were getting to hear Andrew Harwell's (of Harper Collins) talk about openers and first lines. He gave very helpful feedback, and when I read mine he "liked it a lot". I was glad, but didn't take too much notice of it--figured he was being polite.

But when he then referenced my first lines in his next presentation, I swung into full-on squee mode. Which only got worse when I had the opportunity to pitch to agent Stephen Fraser and he requested. Felt great to get that validation that I'm doing some things right.

And as if all that conference excitement wasn't enough, on Sunday we took delivery of our new (new to us at least) trailer! It folds down

 And it opens up

Planning on some writer's retreats in this!

Don't Miss Out on These Opportunities!

Over the weekend, the aptly named Operation Awesome collected a wealth of posts into a New Year's Revision Conference. Agents, editors, and authors all chimed in with advice on tackling revisions, no matter where you are in your publishing journey.

But if you missed out, don't worry--they've archived all the contributions and you can go back and read them at your leisure. And don't forget to enter their giveaway!

Also, WOW! Women on Writing Workshops is putting on a free teleseminar: Show VS Tell and Overwriting in Children’s Fiction by Margo L. Dill tomorrow, on January 8th. They've already filled up the workshop, but there are plans to record the seminar and make it available. Make sure you follow the instructions to sign up for the class or otherwise let them know you're interested in it.

Seems like the 2013 conference season is starting out with a bang!

Score One for the Plotters!

First of all, I finished the full draft of Crow's Rest yesterday! Cullooh! Callay!

Of course, that doesn't mean it's finished. But it's worth taking a moment to celebrate before diving into revisions. I also wanted to take a sec to talk about the process for this book.

Before even starting on Crow's Rest, I did things a little different from the mostly-pantsing method used to plot my first book: I took the time to do a very detailed outline.

And let me tell you, it paid off big time. Whenever I had writer's block, or had spent some time away from the manuscript, the outline got me back on track. And whenever I had a shiny new plot idea flirt my way, I could look at my original framework and see if it enhanced the story or just cluttered it up. (For the record, most of them would have just cluttered it up. I would have enjoyed writing them immensely, but self-indulgence doesn't always improve the book).

The only drawback was that it was harder for me to get the ending out. When I was pantsing, I was just as eager to find out how the book ended as the reader would be (hopefully!). But since I'd done such a detailed outline, I felt like there weren't any surprises and I was just filling in some blanks.

My bad guy had different ideas on that subject and threw me a few curveballs. So that was fun. I feel like the Big Confrontation is not quite Big enough, but at least now I have something down on the page to play with.

The other place the outline will help me is with charting the story arc (I like Vogler's Hero's Journey and Alderson's Plot Whisperer methods). I certainly kept the arc in mind while preparing the outline, and charting it is a great way to check that I hit all the correct notes in the drafting process.

And interestingly, I had worked on a practice query early on (and it got a request in WriteOnCon, btw) and put the estimated finished length at around 70,000. That estimate was based on the somewhat-spare first draft coming in at 65,000, plus another 5,000 in revisions to flesh out characters, motivations, etc. Well, the first draft clocked in at 64,967 words! Not bad.

If you have a finished draft to play with too, you might be interested in checking out Operation Awesome's NewYear's Revision Conference. It starts with a critique partner matchup on Jan. 3, and then the conference on the 4, 5, and 6. Authors, agents, and bloggers, oh my!

Write On, Dude, Write On

Write On Con, an online kidlit writer's conference, started today! Well, the forum got a head start, but the advice posts and live events are now going full swing! Here's what the organizers advertised, and boy does it live up to it:

"Attendees don’t need to take time off work, travel, or spend a truckload of money. They can enjoy the conference from the convenience of their own homes, for free—and the schedule is designed around working hours. (Transcripts are also available of the entire conference, should anyone have to miss part of it.) And everything for the conference takes place within this website, which means everyone with basic Internet access will be able to participate in all aspects of the conference—no additional software or technology required.

During the conference, keynote addresses, agent panels, and lectures are presented as blogs, vlogs, moderated chats, webinars, podcasts, and livestreaming. There is also a critique forum, where participants can post query letters and writing samples to receive helpful feedback and comments from their peers and industry professionals. And, as if that weren’t exciting enough, there are also daily contests, giving random winners everything from books to personalized critiques from agents."

See you around the forum and comments!

UPDATE: My query for Crow's Rest has so far not gotten any Agent Ninja love in the forums, but it did get a partial request from agent Peter Knapp in his MG/YA Pitch live critique!

LA '12 SCBWI Roundup

After the SCBWI International Conference, I was planning on doing a two-part post with highlights from all the workshops I attended, but I've grown up to be a truly horrible note-taker. In fact, my notes from all the keynote speeches consist of doodles: rabbits, horses, dogs, and even a stray unicorn. Plus one of Arthur A. Levine at the podium.

You'll note that I said "doodle" above, and not "frameable work of art." And let this doodle also serve as exhibit A for why I don't often draw people.

By the fact that I didn't take notes, you might think I didn't get anything out of the keynotes, but you'd be wrong. All the speakers were funny, insightful, and inspirational. And Ruta Sepetys was devastatingly honest. Above all, what came through was their unique voices, and how that unique outlook brought them both roadblocks and successes.

And there were so many good workshops that it was difficult to choose which ones to attend. Nancy Ashcraft Herman, Laurie Dennison, and I took a divide-and-conquer approach, and each went to different workshops, comparing notes later. Except for Jay Asher's "No Bookmarks Allowed: How to Inject Suspense into Your Novel" because all three of us wanted to go to that one! And we left with some great tips on building and maintaining tension.

Some of those tips are going to require more thought on how to subtly incorporate them, but he mentioned that chapter titles are an easy way to foreshadow or plant a red herring. Alternatively, pacing can be manipulated by using dialogue or shorter sentences and paragraphs.  Both of these techniques speed things up for the reader. And watch out for suspense killers like forced motivation!

The other workshop that really stood out for me was Sara Wilson Etienne's "Book Trailers: Storyboards, Scripts, Lookbooks, and Everything that Puts the Tease in Teaser". The room it was held in was a little difficult to find and I'm sure that had to do with the small audience. In fact, the group was so small that I wasn't able to yawn as stealthily as I like. If you read this, Sara, I was the one you caught yawning a few times--but it was no reflection on your talk! My medication just makes me sleepy in the afternoon.

But the small audience meant that we were treated to an intimate look into the creation of the fantastic trailer for her book, Harbinger:




Since I'm a photographer (and painted and sketched before I even picked up a still or video camera), I often visualize scenes of my story as if it was a film playing, as I'm drafting the book. So seeing parts of Harbinger come to life really got me excited about this other way to impact readers.

I was so inspired by her simple breakdown of what makes a memorable book trailer that I wrote the entire script for my own future book trailer. My WIP, Crow's Rest, is set in real-life Preston Castle, so I already have a wealth of photographs (and even some video) at my disposal for my trailer. And I have a song picked out, but will need to get permission from the songwriter to use it.

In some ways, it felt like getting way ahead of myself, considering the book isn't even finished. But it also helped cement all the parts of my story that make it unique and worth pursuing. I came away even more determined to finish this book within the next few months, so I can reward myself by getting to play with my book trailer!

If you'd like to see some of Sara's tips on making your own trailer, the good news is that her tips and links will soon be included in the SCBWI Publication Guide, so watch for it!

SCBWI LA Recovery Post

Hopefully by the time this post goes up, I will be back home (I say hopefully because flight delays are being announced as I type) from the SCBWI LA conference. I will do a more in-depth post for next Monday, but for now some pictures of me and writer friends:

First is me and blogger-friend Laurie Dennison from Florida:

This was Laurie's first big conference too, and we reached out to each other in the weeks leading up to it, sharing the things we were nervous about and the things we were excited about. She stayed for the intensive, so hopefully she got some great work done today!

And next up is my critique partner Nancy Ashcraft Herman and our picture with Jay Asher:

and last but not least is a crappy video of the excellent flashmob:


I can say it's crappy because I filmed and edited this version! And Laurie and I also had a picture of us taken in our Hippie Hop getups, but it will have to wait until I get a copy from her phone.
Update: yay, here it is! I painted my arms and everything. Thanks, Laurie, for sharing the photo!

So check back over the next few Mondays and I'll have some serious (well, as serious as it's possible for me to get) takes on the workshops and speakers. Yay, I don't have to think up blog posts for a while!

Roll Call for Los Angeles SCBWI International Conference

I've seen meetups of YA bloggers for BEA and ALA and been writhing with envy (unless the writhing was because you really should respect the expiration date on salsa), but no more!


I'll be at the SCBWI International Conference in Los Angeles  August 2-5 and I'd love to meet up with some of my blogger friends and tweeps! (for any would-be burglars wanting to take advantage of my trip, know that my ex-drummer-in-a-metalhead-band husband will be home along with the cats--and if he doesn't get you, the black cat will) 


So are you planning on going? Leave a comment below and I'll create an email list and see if there's a time we can all get together! Even if it's just "let's take pictures of our kooky 60s outfits for the Hippie Hop Saturday night! Y'all are wearing far-out threads, aren't you?

Or email me at strikingnotes (AT) yahoo (DoT) com. YA Highwayers, Absolute Writers, Bloggers and Wordpressers welcome! Hope to see you there.

I'm Going to L.A., Baby!

I found out yesterday that I won our Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrator's regional chapter's grant for the summer conference! Here's the official announcement:

The goal of this contest is to provide monetary assistance to talented CA North/Central members who would not be able to attend the summer conference without it. We received 21 entries this year (five more than last year!) , and the choice proved difficult. In the end our blind judging process turned up three very deserving winners. Please join us in congratulating YA writer Angelica Jackson of Shingle Springs, illustrator Linda Knoll of Modesto, and non-fiction writer Angelica Carpenter of Fresno. They will each receive a grant of $750 toward their LA conference fees. Upon their return, each recipient will share what they learned in our online ACORN. 

I'm so excited, honored, and grateful! I've already registered and booked the hotel, and now I just need to decide whether to drive or fly there.

So who else will be going? Want to meet up at the conference?

WriteOnCon

Today is the last day for WriteOnCon, so I thought I'd better stop lurking on the site and join the forum. I commented on several posts on Tuesday, but just couldn't keep up with all the good stuff. Now I'm having to play catchup on all the workshops as well as responding to threads on the forum.

The best part is, except for the live events, I don't have to keep up. They archive everything, so you can go back and read and/or watch workshops at your leisure. This is a great idea, because it's difficult to digest all this information at once.

I'm seeing a lot of Absolute Write names on the WOC forums, I guess they share participants. If you'd like to join us, go to http://writeoncon.com/2011/08/gearing-up-for-writeoncon-2011-%E2%80%93-the-full-schedule/ or http://writeoncon.com/forum/ for the forums.

So thank you, WriteOnCon organizers, for providing this valuable service. For free, a bonus to starving writers everywhere!

Fellowships, scholarships, and grants (oh my!)

Writer's conferences and workshops may have fellowships, scholarships, or grants available, but they don't seem to advertise them widely. This makes sense, of course, because they would have people who might otherwise register choose to wait and see if they got some funds to pay their way.

I try to pay for conferences out of my writing income instead of household funds, but this year my account is pretty low. So I decided to look for other ways to attend writer's events, such as volunteering (like I did at our SCBWI Regional Conference recently), fellowships, and grants. I wanted to share some of the opportunities in my neck of the woods, to give some ideas of places to check in your area.

Our SCBWI regional chapter has a grant available for members to attend the Summer Conference in Los Angeles this August. They'll pay up to $1,000 dollars to cover your lodging, conference fees, and a paid critique (oddly, you must be logged in to the site to view the details and application instructions). Incidentally, SCBWI offers a number of other grants for members.

UC Davis, through their extension courses on creative writing and nonfiction writing, holds the Tomales Bay Workshops in October this year. You may apply for an Albert and Elaine Borchard Foundation Fellowship, which will be awarded in each genre: fiction, poetry, and nonfiction/personal essay. Or just become the student editor-in-chief of the American River Review (the literary journal of American River College) and you can automatically get a fellowship.

That last suggestion may be a little more time intensive than you want (and may require you to relocate), but most of the other fellowships, grants, and scholarships require little more than your time and writing effort. There are usually no fees to apply, but you may have to submit an essay or CV along with your writing samples. It didn't take me very long to get my packets together to apply for each of these, and if I get the grant or fellowship it will be time well spent.

Also, I've posted about it before, but it's worth a reminder that Poets & Writers has a searchable database for grants and awards.

Does anyone else want to share any links, or creative low-cost ways to get access to conferences and workshops?

SCBWI North Cal Spring Spirit Conference

Saturday was my first time volunteering at a SCBWI conference, and my second time attending this one. What a long day--a bunch of us were carpooling so I was up at 4:30 a.m. And we got home about 9 p.m.--whew! I really enjoyed volunteering, and would do it again, but maybe not put myself down for the really early duties next time!

The marvelous Bruce Coville was the keynote speaker, and gave insightful advice about how writing for children is all about the details. I popped in for part of his workshop and people were madly taking notes, and any time I ran into him during the day he was surrounded by adoring fans. But the attention hasn't given him a swelled head, he was genuinely one of the most approachable and funny men I've met. We even got to sit with him at dinner, where he (of course) shared some wonderful stories.

The other full sessions I got to attend were Eve Adler's talk on historical fiction (where I came away with some great recommendations for books to track down and read) and Greg Pincus's social media talk (I admit I was fading during that one, but got some useful tips anyhow).

Also caught part one of Nick Catalano's Picture Book Mastery workshop (had to run out during the second part to put out the lunches for everyone) and that was probably my favorite part. He walked us through Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are, pointing out design choices and how his style revolutionized the PB market. I haven't been formally "schooled" in PBs, so this was a great way to stimulate new ways of looking at the design and how the writing and pictures complement each other.

All in all, worth the long day. One of my crit partners even got a full request out of her paid agent critique, so yay for her! And BTW, our crit group was formed through SCBWI's "looking for a crit group" organization.

Revised Video Pitches

If you haven't been following Pitch University, you may not have seen the good news/bad news scenario that followed my video pitch submission. The good news was that both my pitches were chosen for the Pitch Evaluation Lab last Wednesday. The bad--well, more terrifying than bad--news was that I had to finish revisions by that Friday morning. Knowing that I had a dentist appointment Thursday morning, as well as our crit group Thursday afternoon. And to make it more interesting, we had an intense thunderstorm with wind gusts of up to 80mph--all of which will be picked up by microphones if they're sensitive enough.

But I squeaked in under the wire, and I'm pretty pleased with the results. These will come in handy for the SCBWI Spring Spirit Regional Conference next weekend. I'm pasting my revised pitches below, or you can go to Pitch U's site and see the Before & After with Adam Friedstein's comments.

Need an excuse to come to Lake Tahoe?

If you've been writing for a while, you've probably heard of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers workshops and events (this is their 41st year!) at some point.

But what you may not know is that they post a schedule of events on their website (you can also sign up by email) and many of the events are FREE and OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. That's right, you don't have to be accepted and enrolled as a participant. So if you can find a way out there, you have a feast of valuable writing input just waiting for you.

Lest you think free might translate into poor quality presentations, I have to mention the Roseville LitFest that I went to last Saturday. It was funded by some grants and corporate sponsorships, and the speakers were not paid, so the library was able to offer this as a free event.

There were maybe 50 booths for authors and other writing-related organizations, and it was so fun to walk around and talk to everybody. Some of that fun was the fantasy of, "Someday I'll be on the other side of that table," but some was just the opportunity to make a connection with the author. They all were so enthusiastic about their projects.

There were even panels and writing workshops; for the most part, I thought it was a similar experience to the SCBWI Spring Spirit Conference that was held in Rocklin. Except I had to pay money for that one (I didn't mind, it's to support the organization and the authors that spoke, and I made some great connections).

For the LitFest, I figured that I may not learn anything very new, but at least I wouldn't go away thinking I didn't get my money's worth! We've all been to at least one of those conferences or workshops where we say, "Man, I should have used that money for postage and printer ink."

Addendum: Article in the Sacramento Press on the Roseville Lit Fest

First Post

I attended a regional conference for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators a few weeks ago and got some helpful ideas for revisions on my novel, as well as meeting some interesting people.

One of the highlights was a workshop on synopses by Brian Farrey, editor at Flux books. As an exercise, he had us do a 4-line synopsis of our book. He had a few people read theirs aloud, and he liked mine!

But this is not just meant as idle bragging; I had a woman come up to me at the end of the day and tell me how much she liked my synopsis, and I realized I had no web presence to send her to for my current writing projects. My website for my photos has been up for several years now, but it doesn't lend itself to a blog-style interactive site.

So I'm starting this blog with the idea that it can hold updates on my current writing projects, as well as furnishing some useful links and information for other writers.

Be welcome, and I hope you find something interesting in the coming posts.