This was another set of good times. I came out feeling energized, excited, focused and ready to tackle dragons. So many wonderful, funny and inspiring things happened, I can't talk about them all in depth, but thought I'd put together a top ten list.
10. Having Ann Aguirre tell me I had pretty eyes.
9. Attending the wonderfully insightful Laurie Schnebly Campbell's workshop on the Personality Ladder which I think will be a marvelous tool for keeping me focused during the plotting process.
8. Learning some of the many things that Lauren Dane doesn't support.
7. Accidentally French kissing Christina Arbini before I even managed to register for the conference. Note to self: do not sneak up on people while they're eating lunch and kiss them on the cheek. When they're startled, they turn toward you and you can end up with part of their lunch in your mouth.
6. Barbara Vey's adorable and inspiring speech at the end of the conference. Talk about a great story-teller! She had the room in the palm of her hand. Get her to tell you how she ended up at an Obama rally with Caroline Kennedy as one of the speakers and everything it led to. You'll wish you wrote it.
5. Eileen Cook and Serena Robar's workshop on planning a year's worth of writing. First of all, they served wine at their workshop. It was from Target. Yes. That Target. The Pinot Noir was surprisingly good. Perhaps not as delightful as a Bud Light, but there you have it. Second of all, I came out with the tools I need to define my writing goals for the rest of 2010 and possibly into 2011.
4. Watching Alyssa Day use a bookmark as photo ID to check into the hotel. Somehow the room was booked under her pen name and not her real name and the desk clerk wasn't happy with the photo ID and credit card in Alyssa's real name (Alesia Holliday). It wasn't until she whipped out a bookmark with her picture on it that she managed to get a key.
3. Having Rosemary Clement-Moore tell me that the book that I'm afraid to write might be the book that's most important to write since I actually care about getting it right. I'm terrified that she might be right.
2. Caridad Ferrer's insightful commentary about the appeal of the Beta hero over lettuce wraps and fried green beans at PF Chang's that might have gotten me to realize what the real conflict should be in my next Messenger book.
And the Number One Moment for Eileen at ECWC? (Drum roll, please!)
1. Getting a personal shout-out in Alyssa Day's absolute barn-burner of a dinner speech. She had the room laughing, crying and cheering and did I mention that she said my name?
6 comments:
Sounds like a blast! All except the french kissing part with the food ;)
Hilarious - especially #7 - lol!
Oh, I so wish I could have been there. Too many conferences, too little time (and way too little money.)
That Christina Arbini story made me snort my coffee. :)
Oh, I know, Maureen! They're such fun and I always come away with something interesting, but they're so darn hard on the pocket book!
For the whole rest of the conference, Christina would lick her lips suggestively every time I saw her. Truly one of my finer moment.
oh man - I'm jealous - that's a great conference and not just because they french kiss you with food....
I need someone to tell me how to plan my writing year -that would have been a great conference because honest to god I feel like I'm walking alone in the dark and I'm sure there's a cliff around ehre somewhere!
The goal setting part of the workshop was very eye-opening to me. I'm really wrestling with it right now. I'm afraid of the same cliff you think you might wander off of, Molly.
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