June 14, 2010

Ah, the Monday after a great weekend of "something different". I'm both glad to be home and wish that I was still drinking down all the information at the conference. I had an absolutely wonderful time, and am already planning on attending next year - better prepared even! Just a quick rundown of the weekend, and then I'll move forward into this weeks goals:
I went up to Ripley on Thursday and snuck in a "vacation day" so I wouldn't have to drive the whole way at O'dark-thirty Friday morning. I'm REALLY glad I did too - not only because highway driving is on my top 5 list of least favorite things either. So after a relaxing and (overly) quiet night, I headed over to Cedar Lakes Conference Center and moved in there from Friday until Sunday. Gorgeous park, and for camp type rooms, the accommodations were actually more than I was expecting. Everything was within walking distance which meant I didn't even have to deal with moving the car all weekend so it felt even more like a vacation in that way. The schedule of workshops kept me hopping all three days, and the presenters were great! I learned a lot, and have a feeling that once I go back through my notes and handouts I'll find that I learned even more than I think I did. The entertainment each night was great, and I only regret that I was so tired Saturday that I didn't stay for the after performance acoustic session. The banquet was wonderful with inspirational and touching moments and I have a goal to hear my name on the prize list next year (better start writing hu LOL). The only odd point about going is that now I'm not quite as sure of my plan for Clyde the Undead Dust-bunny as I was before... my dream publisher, Candlewick Press, had a representative there. Normally they do not accept unagented manuscripts, but anyone attending the conference can send them one for consideration... It's actually a tough decision. I'm proud of myself for sticking to my schedule and Clyde is ready for the printer just as soon as I file for copyright and save up just a tiny bit more money... I could have the book in my hand in August as planned. OR I could take the chance that Candlewick will pick her up. I'd want the last read through and check for revisions that I've already got planned, so I'd send her out at the end of this month, then the publisher would have 3 months to look her over, if they say Yes it would be at least a year and a half before she would be in print, and she would have a different illustrator (which actually doesn't bother me that much). I would still have to do a lot of the marketing especially after the initial push. I'm just not sure how much farther ahead that would actually put me... I'm welcoming opinions. You can either post them in the comments section or e-mail me directly at revisedelf@yahoo.com or catch me on facebook.
So aside from that quandary which is actually a good thing, the whole weekend went terrifically! I'd recommend the WV Writer's Conference to anyone who is interesting in writing.
So now for what I'm On My Way To this week. ORGANIZATION!!! I've got a LOT of info from the conference to go through (as you can see in the picture) and e-mail to catch up on, and it would seem my desk has been lost once again under everything from stray coupons to a bottle of Foot Soak. I also have some new friendships to build so that means e-mails have to happen. It should be a busy week! As for writing, I'm wanting to start something new that I can fit into another blog, so I think I'll use this week to start brainstorming how I want it to turn out. I'll add more about that another day, but for now, I need to start with the stepping. I'll check in on Friday to let you know how it goes!