A Midwest Experience

Come one, come all! Storymakers Midwest is calling!

Storymakers is a one day event of fabulous writers and amazing information gifting to the brains of all us anxious conference attendees.

We hover like bees on a summer day ready go class to class, gathering all the info we can till our brains are so heavy with information we can hardly move. Then we set it all down in our lovely notebooks and take to the sky!

The best part is not a one of the other attendees will sting you!

It's either that or the networking with authors who have been throw the same wringer we're currently running ourselves through. Or the class options that seem to fit every level of writer and energize you to set off into that great honeycomb of book theories in your head, finally able to make sense of the glory that awaits the potential of that one special idea.

I think i need to get outside.

Perhaps at Storymakers!

This was most of the group last year! I really can't say enough about how great these authors are!

Details -

Date: Saturday, September 21st, 2013

Time: 8 am – 9 pm

Location: Holiday Inn in Overland Park, KS

So excited! The conference is only $105 dollars and my return was definitely worth the value! 

It's kinda like EFY for writers and only a day long, so, you get to go home and see your favorite cheerleaders sooner than later!

I say story, you say makers!

Story!

(makers)

Story!

(makers)

Yay! Rah, rah, sis boom bah!

OK now I'm just slipping into a sad little glory days moment only I never was a cheerleader. 

It's my Uncle Rico moment.

Oh and so you know, here's a link to the classes, and one for the registration and speaker's list as well!

Don't take no shortcuts

Wow, I knew this already but I've had a reminder lately that it takes a long time to write a novel. 

It's sometimes really weird to me that I'll get all excited and start making really good progress writing everyday and then look at what still needs to be done and I think, 

"Wow. This is gonna take forever."

I mentioned that to my fabulous friend Tamara once and her answer... "Yeah. it does." 

Well okay then.

 Buckle up cause were in this for the long haul :)

ROFL

Okay, truthfully I've never used that acronym but it totally fits my thoughts today!

Last night was critique group night. That coveted night of all nights, I smile a lot on critique group nights! And last night we were dying! There was so much more than smiling going on! 

Keli over at Keli Wright's Open-Faced Sandwich wrote about it and it got me thinking about how good it is to laugh! 

I haven't done a lot of reading at critique group lately because I'm working on a rough draft of a new book. But for some reason everyone had been kinda dead on the writing front. (It happens!) 

Well, I was not going to let my coveted evening run short! So, I pulled out a couple pages that at least resembled the intended storyline. I apologized, emailed, apologized again, and then read. 

After the first couple mistakes, we giggled, but as we went on some of the mistakes were so ill placed or took on such a different context than they were intended to be, that we were full out belly laughing in the back of the yogurt shop we were meeting in. It was amazing!

I think part of my willingness to laugh had to do with the fact that it was such a raw story. When you've worked tirelessly for months pouring your heart and soul into a story, it's painful even to show it to a close friend. Much less send it out to be critiqued and torn apart! (Even if they are still close friends :) ) But at this stage we simply laughed. 

We knew there would be changes, we knew the story would change, maybe even dramatically, so for now, we let it clean through our perfectionist souls and we simply relaxed and enjoyed the beginnings of writing that so many stories take! 

In fact I woke up today feeling better than I have in ages! I'm not saying I'll make a regular habit of this but it was sure a great night!