Conference Notes and Insights: Part 2

By Lacey Gunter

Here is my last set of notes and insights to share from WIFYR14.  Hope they are helpful.

Notes and insights from J Scott Savage:

1. When your confidence is shot as a writer it can severely impede your creative process and motivation.

2. If you define your personal success on how well a book sells or how well it meets sales expectations, you will inevitably find yourself thinking you're an unsuccessful writer, no matter how well you write. Your job is to write great books, it is the publishers job to sell them.

3. In some situations your participation in helping market a book will have no effect on sales and you can use up all your profits trying. In other instances your participation in helping market a book can have a sizable effect. It is difficult to predict before hand which will occur though. So if you enjoy the marketing, go for it. If you don't, spend your time writing your next great book and don't feel guilty.


Great idea from Shawn Stout:

Write down what your current writing schedule/routine is. Next write down what you would consider to be your ideal writing schedule/routine. For most of us, it is unlikely you'll be able to change enough in your life to make your ideal a reality. But, comparing the two, you may be able to find one aspect you can change today that will bring you closer to your ideal.


Notes and insight from Michelle Witte:

1. Don't take the time to tell the reader things are typical, just let the reader assume it.

2. You don't need adverbs if you use strong verbs.

3. The level of visual detail needed in today's publishing market is far far less than what it was before the internet was around. People's attention spans are much shorter and the world is a smaller place where people are much more exposed to different environments.

4. Remove redundancy in your details. Respect your reader enough to have gotten the information the first time.

Conference Notes and Insights: Part 1

By Lacey Gunter

I attended the conference Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers (WIFYR) in June, my very first writers conference. It was a very enjoyable and enriching experience and I am grateful for all the faculty and staff who put in such hard work to make it happen. Here are some of the notes and insights I got from the conference. I will probably share a few more the next time I post again.

General Insight:  The best way to get real access to agents and editors at a conference is to be part of the conference staff.

Notes and insights from Editor Kristin Ostby:

What editors are looking for when they read your manuscript:
1. Strong voice
2. Captivating language
3. Compelling Narrator/Protagonist
4. Tension
5. Interesting Setting

You don't have to have all of these on the first page of your manuscript, but you should have more than one (likewise for any page in your manuscript).

Notes and insights from agent John Cusick:

1.  Have a small goal for every day - something manageable

2. Measure your success in your daily goals first by whether you sat down and started, not necessarily by whether you finished or did well

3. Writing is a process, forget you are writing a book and just work on writing a page

4. Create a literal or virtual space that you reserve just for writing; for example, you can pull out an object to set on your desk or by your computer that tells your brain this is writing time

5. Turn off your phone and the internet on the device you are using (you can download the program Freedom if you have trouble enforcing this on your own)

6. To keep yourself from going edit crazy while you are trying to write, give your inner critique voice a name, for example,  Paige,  and when needed tell yourself  "That's just Paige talking, and I don't have to listen to her right now."

7. Be tough on yourself, but feel free to let your mind wander and take breaks from writing all together, either periodically or after the completion of a big project

8. When you are feeling tortured in your writing, you might be writing your best stuff

9. Periodically write things for yourself that you have no intention of sharing with others; this will free you to let your creativity go in any direction it wants and can bring back your joy or passion for writing

10. Allow yourself to be strange, different or eccentric, these are the things that often make you a great writer