News from New York City

I'm writing this post on the plane back from New York City and the 2015 RWA National Convention. I'm on airplane wifi, somewhere over West Virginia, and the plane is quite certain that if I connect to our Word-Whores programming calendar, dire and terrible things will occur.

Alas.

But I have plenty that's off-topic to say. The convention was wonderful.Here's at the Black & White Harlequin Ball at the Waldorf Astoria with my agent Connor Goldsmith and good friend, agent Jennifer Udden, of Donald Maass Literary Agency. There may have been a lot of free champagne involved, but there are thankfully no photos of that phase of the evening.

I hope.

Despite the many parties, time spent catching up with friends and business meetings, I managed to attend a few workshops, and live-tweeted nuggets I gleaned. I thought I'd share those here.

Julia Quinn gave a terrific keynote speech. She spoke to the universal truth that you're more likely to see the President of the United States than your own book in your local grocery store - and how that relates to a writer's sense of self worth. It's tempting to think about the market, what your readers might demand down the line and how to hook them into the next story, but pointed out that our primary concern when writing a book in a series has to be THAT novel, not the overall series arc.We can't escape being liked - after all, there's a reason they call it popular fiction - if we couldn't be popular in high school, then by God we'll do it now. However, she very wisely pointed out that when we accept that we can't please everyone all the time, it frees us to write the book we need to write.

I might have that cross-stitched.

I learned a number of new ways of looking at conflict. Virginia Kantra gave great insights on it in a workshop on emotional content, saying that without suffering, there is no growth. Without conflict, your hero & heroine are merely dating. Michael Hauge lived up to his reputation, giving a great workshop on storytelling. He said that the hero or heroine of your story doesn't need to be heroic, but must have the potential to become heroic and that a storyteller's goal is evoking emotion in the reader - and emotion arises from conflict. Outer conflicts should occur more frequently and become more intense as the story progresses, to accelerate pace. Inner conflicts arise from emotional wounds and the beliefs the hero or heroine holds that grow out of emotional wounds are never true, but are always logical. Inner conflict is the conflict between being safe & unfulfilled vs. fulfilled & scared shitless.

That's the shorthand version. I recommend Hauge's workshops, which can be obtained online here. I know I'm going home with some increased clarity about what I want to write and how.

Savoring the Outside Point of View

Last night my most excellent friend, critique partner and Word-Whore alum, Carolyn Crane, won the Romance Writers of America (RWA) RITA award for her romantic suspense, Off the Edge. Even more exciting, she's the first author to win a RITA with a self-published book.

We knew she was one of the finalists, but it wasn't until the awards ceremony that we found out.

Carolyn has been my roommate at the conference all week, which is a treat for us. We live on different sides of the country and mostly communicate via email and instant messenger, sprinkled in with the occasional phone call. We often bemoan that we can't meet for a drink or lunch, so our five-day grown-up slumber party is an opportunity to saturate ourselves in writer talk and to savor each other's company.

The RITA finalists get to bring a guest or two to share their VIP table at the RITA awards, so I was Carolyn's date last night. I don't think it really hit either of us, the reality of the building tension, until a few hours before. We'd been running around all week, going to and from panels, speeches, meetings, lunches and parties. But we made sure to meet for dinner, eating early at 5:30, so we'd have time to get into our fancy dresses.

She was keyed up and so was I. Even though I kept reassuring her with the very true observation, that finaling for the RITA is really the big bump - in buzz and sales - I started to feel nervous. Now, a date's job at this kind of thing is to help maintain the calm, to buffer the anxiety, so I kept up a good face. Still, I really wanted this for her and the imminent possibility of great celebration or the bruise of disappointment loomed. I had my consolation words planned, knowing well how it can sting, even when you KNOW it's still amazing to get that close.

When her category came up, I rubbed a hand over her back, as much to soothe myself as her.

When they called her name, I burst into tears. I rarely have experienced the happy cry, but I did last night.

When she came back to the table, carrying her heavy golden statue, she sat and said, "Did I remember to thank you in my speech?" and I said, "I don't know - I was crying!"

One of those stories we'll tell forever.

This week's theme is: Choosing point-of-view (POV): How Do You Know Which One Is Right For Your Story?

In many ways, this is Carolyn's story. But it's also mine. I've walked this road with her from the very first glimmer of the concept for this series. Last night felt as much my joy as hers. Conventional wisdom says we should choose POV according to which character has the greatest emotional stake in a scene. Which means, if I were writing the book, I'd want to tell you this story from Carolyn's POV.

In real life, however, it's necessarily my POV. I can give a perspective that she can't. One infused with the pure elation of celebrating someone else's victory.

A sweet place to be.

It's What You Know and What You Do With It

You know stuff. Yes, you do. It is highly likely that you have specific knowledge of something that would be of interest to someone else.

The first step for How To Put Up a Workshop: what do you know? It took me years to realize that while I am a character driven writer just like a bunch of other writers, I have a whole actor's toolbox at my back when it comes to handling characters - a toolbox I could open up and offer to other writers. Insta-workshop. A good friend is fascinated by the novel Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie. She has turned into the ultimate research geek for Edwardian fashion, manners, and ships/shipbuilding - not to mention her depth of insight into a single piece of literature. She has all kinds of workshop opportunities there. (Costuming/fashion, research resources for the time period, etc) Maybe you have a job you often see depicted inaccurately in fiction. There's your workshop. Or you have in depth insight into the mind of a serial killer because you've never, up until this very workshop, confessed that you are a serial killer. Whatever your knowledge, someone, somewhere needs it.

Second step for How To Put Up a Workshop: can you communicate your special thing in layman's terms? Part of the challenge of knowing what you know is that you know it. You take what you know for granted. Teasing apart what you know so that it's accessible to others is no easy feat. Solicit feedback from someone outside of your specialty field. A critique group can help. Or friends who know nothing about your deep, dark secret life. If it's the serial killer thing? I can't help. I'm busy.

Third step for How To Put Up a Workshop: pick your audience. Serial killer? I suggest that law enforcement might not be your ideal audience. The rest of you may have noticed I like cats. Hanging out with the cat fancy, I can say I have picked up a fair bit of information about the genetics of feline coloration. Specialized knowledge that's utterly useless to just about everyone else on earth. Knowing that my workshop audience(s) are likely to either be writers or steampunk enthusiasts, I have to realize nobody else cares that genetically speaking there's no such thing as a brown and white tabby cat. Unless I'm making a point of coming up with a mad scientist aboard and airship somewhere who's doing the impossible with gene splicing brown and white cats with machine components. Your audience is likely going to be determined by the conferences and meetings you already attend. Most of us are going to develop workshops for writers or for readers. But what other events do you attend? Our marina brings in speakers on subjects specific to boaters - crossing the Atlantic, managing storms at sea, circumnavigating Vancouver Island or cruising the canals of France. . .match what you know with who might be intrigued by what you know. Check your local libraries. Don't limit your audience. What you know may be applicable more than one place, which brings us to:

Fourth step for How To Put Up a Workshop: develop for more than one format. If you belong to RWA, you have amazing opportunities for putting on your workshop in multiple formats. You can teach your workshop online via a series of lessons you write out and then interactive emails with participants. Do this through your online chapters. You can present your workshop at your local chapter meeting. You can submit your workshop proposal to a local conference. Last but not least, you can submit your proposal to the National conference.

NOTE: while I echo the advice that interactive workshops are really helpful, don't think you'll get people out of their chairs to participate in actual movement once you reach local and national conference levels - everyone is in nice clothes and shoes. Interactive at that point means getting workshop participants to talk to you and/or share writing.

Should You? When to Con

Do you have a completed manuscript? Go to an RWA sponsored convention. It need not be National, though if you're a member of the organization, you should do that at least once in your life. The point is to put yourself in the same room as the editors buying books and into the same room as the agents who might represent the type of book you wrote. Several RWA chapters put up conventions. Check to find out whether there might be one close by. Then avail yourself of every workshop and learning opportunity you can. Also, there may be costume parties.

It was at RWA conferences that I learned the difference between internal and external conflict. It's where I learned I wasn't a plotter and that there was no faster way to take the joy out of writing than to attempt to be a plotter. I found mentors. Above all, and best of all, I made great friends at conferences. My sharpest critique group is made up of women I met at conferences. The first request I ever had for a partial happened at a local conference. An editor asked for the first three chapters. And when she rejected them, she kindly gave me some insight as to why. The first person to request a full manuscript was an agent I'd met at a conference. (She rejected the book and also gave me some feedback - something she wasn't obligated at all to do and which I appreciated enormously.) So, yes. Cons. 100% worth the time, effort and introvert dread - IF when someone requests pages, you actually SEND them.

However, all that said, I didn't find an agent at a conference. I did that by spamming every agent on the RWA agent list who even intimated he or she might read science fiction. There were nine. One of them read my sample pages, requested the full, read it over Easter weekend, and called me Monday morning. When my first book sold, it sold to an editor I'd never met. (Though later I did get to meet her in person - at a con.) Point being that if you cannot get to a convention, don't stress it. Makes no difference to the people who'll rep and/or buy your book. Do I think I got my work into shape faster because of cons and the workshops? Yes. But if you're taking workshops, trying new things in your writing, getting feedback on your work, and doing your damnedest to incorporate the feedback that makes sense to you? You're in good shape, don't sweat the conference.

Is there a time I'll urge you to pull every stop and get your butt to a conference come hell or high water?

There is. Once you're published, if you final in the RITA, go to National. Don't care what it takes. When I was lucky enough to final, it was the summer my husband and I were sailing the Inside Passage for five months. We were headed north into unbroken wilderness. I say unbroken wilderness and I mean 'no airport for hundreds and hundreds of miles'. To get me to the conference that year, we turned around so I could fly to NYC. Where I won absolutely nothing. But where I had the time of my life. If you final in the major contest for your genre, you are a princess (or a prince) for the duration of the conference where the winners are announced. People will see your finalist pin and ribbon and whether they know you or not, will ask for the story of how the book got published and what happened when you found out it was a finalist. Your editor and your agent, if you have one, will likely be at that conference. You'll sit with them at the finalists table at the awards banquet. You get nifty little 'finalist' flags for your spot at the great big book signing. Just for the number of people I got to meet and talk to - I will never regret interrupting the trip of a lifetime for the conference of a lifetime. Maybe my husband, who was trapped in Victoria Harbor for Canada Day and fireworks regrets it a tiny little bit, but he was also three blocks from his favorite chocolate store in the whole wide world. He doesn't seem to hold much of a grudge. :D