A few hours from now, Margo and I will be on our way to the NECRWA conference in Burlington, MA, always such a fun time. The attendees are so friendly and the authors, so generous with their tips and their books. Yes, books! Every time you turn around someone is putting a free book in your hands. When you walk into a conference room for a workshop, there are more books; on your chairs and on the tables. The raffles are fantastic and numerous, and the food is great!
Two years ago, Margo went by herself. She loved it so much I decided to go with her last year. We loved it so much the two other women in our writing group decided to go with us. Yay! We're taking up half a table!
Margo and I are going a day early to get some serious writing done, and Lisa and Rachel will join us on Friday. We've all submitted five pages of our manuscripts to be critiqued by agents and editors. I'm hoping I get some constructive feedback.
Regarding CrimeBake, I waited until the last minute to submit to the Al Blanchard contest and to Level Best Books. I sent "Listen, and You Shall Hear" to the contest, but I was too late for the anthology. They only accept hard copy and it had to be postmarked by today. Oh, well. Live and learn.
I'll post this week-end from the conference - with pictures!
~ Later
With only a couple of weeks remaining until the Let Your Imagination Take Flight RWA conference, I was rushing to submit the first five pages of my my short story, A Necessary Romance, before the deadline. In my haste, I deleted the entire story! All I had was a hard copy, so I had to type it in all over again. When I got to the end of the fifth page I realized that it was in the middle of a sentence. I couldn't really stop there, so I had to start cutting. But, cut what? What words could I possibly throw away? I"d sweated over every one of them! Alas, one-by-one, I killed my darlings. Killed them until I had five pages that would leave you wanting more, but not leave you frustrated.
I didn't think it was possible; the story is so short, but it was. I know about writing tight, and I thought that's what I'd done, but when I was able to cut so many words and make my story more meaningful at the same time, it was a revelation. You KNOW I'm now going to have to go through all my short stories and start cutting!
Latah'
