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.

So You're Going to a Writing Conference...

It's conference season. Some of you might have gone to LTUE or ANWA, or you might be heading out to some of the conferences this summer. Some of you may be gearing up for Storymakers. Some of you might even be going for the very first time.

And if you're going for the very first time, you might be wondering what to expect. 

Never fear. I have been to one whole conference and am here to help you. 

Yes. One whole conference. My wisdom is astounding. Nevertheless, these are the things I learned while preparing for and attending my first-ever writing conference. You can benefit from my experiences. Somebody might as well...

First, I learned writers have a different dress code than most people. When I first asked what I should wear, people unanimously responded "Business Casual." I worked in banking for eight years, and I learned that "business casual" meant you didn't need to wear a button-up and a jacket. One or the other was fine: either a jacket over a cami, or a button-up with no jacket. And your shoes could be open-toe. That's how I defined business casual.

Silly me.

When writers say "business casual" though, they mean jeans, little-nicer-than-a-tee-shirt shirts, maybe a cardigan. A cotton dress, maybe? Someone responded by saying she was going to bring her "dressy clogs" and I don't know what that means, but by golly it's a lot better than what I had been planning to wear on my feet.

So when you're packing for a conference, make sure you'll be comfortable, respectable, and look like you want to be taken seriously. Well-fitted jeans, a nice (not dressy) top, slacks, polo shirts. That kind of stuff.

Second, I learned you walk a lot at conferences. You stand in lines and you walk to and from classes and you peruse the bookstore and you wait for people and oh my gosh are your feet going to be sore. I opted for my cowgirl boots, and it was the best decision I ever made. Not as casual as my cross-trainers, but just as comfy. Converse sneakers are popular, as are the aforementioned dressy clogs (I learned what they are through my powers of observation).

Bottom line on shoes: Be comfortable while still maintaining an air of professionalism, while knowing that "professionals" in this field sit at home in yoga pants for most of their career. I have strong opinions about this, but I don't want to be torn apart in comments, so I will leave it at that.

Third, I learned I had no idea what my book was about. People will ask you what you're writing. If you take more than eleven seconds to answer that question or use the phrase "and then there's this...", they will stop listening to you. Create a pithy logline (even if it's a gross oversimplification) to use in quick conversations with people in the halls or while classes are gathering. Examples:

It's a dark adaptation of Mean Girls meets Groundhog Day. 

It's a time travel story of a modern black woman who keeps being yanked back to the ante bellum South. 

It's about a wizard boarding school in modern-day England. 

Once you have your cute logline, come up with a quick, thirty-second description for the people who genuinely look interested. Include your genre, category, and a comp title or two, or what sets it apart from "all the other books just like it". And don't kid yourself, at least one person will suggest that there are a thousand books just like yours, no matter how creative your idea is.

After you've given your quick spiels, ask the other person about their book. I promise you, at least once, you'll think "Holy crap, that's the best book idea ever, why didn't I think of that???" and you'll be genuinely happy for the person you're talking to when that happens.

Fourth, I learned people at conferences really, genuinely want to help you. It's weird. But we all seem to really want to help our competition. Experienced writers will sit and brainstorm with you, people who are on the path to publication will share ideas and hacks and point you in the direction of the best instructors. The classes are full - FULL - of so much information your head will want to burst from all the awesome. Agents and editors will sit on panels, answering questions and giving a peek into their process, and they are doing it just because they want to see you succeed.

That's incredible.

That's wonderful.

And that's what makes this community of writers so freaking awesome.

So What Saturday: God sends a helicopter

Pardon me if I butcher the retelling of this story I heard in church forever ago.

There's a man who lives in a mobile home. One day it begins to rain. And rain. And rain.  We're talking Noah flood like rain here.

So he's a little bit worried, but he has faith. He knows God will take care of him.

The water seeps past the cinderblock and comes into the mobile home. He heads outside to climb onto his truck and wait out the flood.

A boat floats by. The driver of the boat says they are evacuating, and does he need a lift, The man waves him past. He will be ok, because God will rescue him.


The water rises and soon he finds himself up on his roof, waiting for the flood to subside. A helicopter fly past and drops a rope ladder. Climb up, we'll save you.  The man thanks them, but declines. He's got the Lord on his side.

As you may have guessed, the man drowns. When he arrives in heaven and meets the Lord, the man is upset. Why didn't you save me, Lord? I had faith and I waited for you to help me.


The Lord replies in loving chastisement, "I sent you a boat. I sent you a helicopter. But you would not help yourself."




Okay, there was a point to this, I swear. Are you drowning in you writing? Are you on the roof waiting for the Lord, or your muse to rescue you?


I have a friend that is writing a doctrinal book. She is stuck so deep in the mire that I worry about her oxygen resources. I've asked her why doesn't she go get help. Go to a conference, take classes, join a writer's group. Her answer is no way. She is positive that the Lord means for her to write this book and he will make it happen for her.

I too am drowning in writing woes. Well today I am at LDS Storymakers conference. I am rescuing myself. And there have been so many life preservers thrown my way. And I hate to say I almost passed this up. Out of fear (of meeting new people), maybe pride (do I really need classes? ( um yes)), with a little bit a money woes mixed in.

But I know that this is my boat. This is my helicopter. When I get on my knees and pray to find my way through the muck, the Lord hears me. He doesn't pull me out with his own two hands, but he does send help.

It can be a person. It can be a story. It might just be the still small voice. Keep your eyes and your ears peeled- and be ready to grab the rope.

 Here's Nikki Wilson, MMW founder , at the book signing table at the conference. :)  

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Goals: Why I LOATHE them, but they're Good For Me

I hate to fail. I'm sure it's something I've struggled with since before time began, but I hate it. I am not one of those people who can just pick themselves up and and dust themselves off everytime they fall. I am a lay-down-on-the-ground-kicking-and-screaming-and-having-the-biggest-tantrum-ever kind of person. (Well, at least on the inside.)

I've always had a hard time judging just what I am capable of. I know the Lord knows me better than I do, so as I've matured, I've tried to rely more on the Spirit rather than "the arm of the flesh".

Well, this past week I signed up for a writer's conference in February, the annual ANWA conference. I also (gulp) signed up for a pitch session with Jane Dystel, head of Dystel and Goderich Literary Management (ack! Gasp!) But to pitch you must have something finished. I do not. I need to finish. I need to polish. I need to do a lot more to get this current story ready for the big time.

So now I have to Make A Goal. But what goal, do you ask? I could say, "have Fairy Godfather finished by conference". BUT....that would leave me without time to polish, let it sit and simmer, get it out to beta readers, etc.

So, you say, get it done by...January. Sure, I could, but that would only give me a few weeks to get it out and back and polished. NOT that you take your manuscript to the pitch session. It's like a query letter in person, so they REALLY don't want to haul 20 reams of paper back with them. But it would be nice to be able to send it out right after the conference if she requests anything.

So...I need more than 6 weeks to get it ready.

So, you say, get it done by mid-December. Before Christmas, so it doesn't interfere with anything else during the holidays.  You're getting warmer, but I still think that 8 weeks is not enough time for it to simmer. I wanted at least a month of not looking at it before I did some editing and sent it out to beta readers.

Okay, you reply. How about NaNoWriMo? Finish it using NaNo. Weeeellllll....maybe. If I have to. If I haven't succeeded in my first tier goal. Which is....drum roll please.....finish it by Halloween. Gasp. (I think I might faint just thinking it.) I've never written that much in such a short amount of time. I'm terrified. WHAT IF I FAIL!!!!!?????

But I know this is what the Lord wants from me. I have to do the work, He won't write it for me, but the internal pressure from constant nudging from the Spirit will not let me rest. I HAVE to get this done. On this time frame, or I will be scrambling at the end, and that's not what I want. I want to do this calmly, with deliberate steps, not my usual scraping up the dregs, dragging a trail of toilet paper behind me as a I run around squawking like a headless chicken. I need to become that person that does the right thing when it's the right thing to do.

So...um...I better go get to work.