Hello world. Hope are you? I’m back in Miami now, and the traffic pattern certainly welcomed me home. Cars everywhere are so jarring after such an amazing writers conference at sea. I’m home now, and my feet are up. I have chicken for tonight, so now I get to relax. Yeah.
Tomorrow I go to the paying job and life returns to normal.
But technically today, I was on a cruise. Best writers conference ever because if you need to leave for a little while to go get ice cream or some sun… go. Then there are other things to do. See you at dinner or at the next workshop. All the amenities are included on a cruise, so that ice cream is paid for already. No need to bring cash or worry.
Hint one on a cruise: The water package was phenomenal. I stared at my computer screen for a day and asked myself…. do I need the soda package? I don’t drink soda regularly. The water package was the same price, and like the good Florida resident I am, I drink a lot of water to stay hydrated in the sun. Perfect plan. My roomie even bought a bottle off me.
Now onto the workshops. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Good advice and help from everyone, and the best thing they do is Floridian Idol. People put their first two pages in anonymously to be read aloud, and the editors and agent give their feedback. Such invaluable information.
Also had a friend mention, if you intend to write romance, you must follow the rules. But I’m such a rule breaker, so I need to be dared to follow the rules. Tell me I can’t do something, then I can break the rules to prove you wrong. This is so how my mind always works. An agent, Elaine Spencer, was talking at her workshop, and an off the cuff comment she made about plotting was that the characters need to be in action and moving. (She wasn’t giving a plotting workshop, but talking about the stories she reads.) Anyhow I tell my friend, ‘ya see, now that she said that I want to write a story where a male and a woman must stand still and model because they are pretending to be Egyptian mummies at a fancy party for rich people… I want to find the exception clause.’ Do other people automatically think these things? I don’t know. I’m strange.
I’ll put up pictures of the awesomeness of the cruise, later. But in 2015 if anyone is looking for a writers conference, Florida Romance Writers put on a good one. Who doesn’t like a cruise?!? The food is plentiful. The parties are fun. And everyone is relaxed because we’re on a cruise, so the stress level of everyone gets deleted. We learn and have fun.
Okay, off to watch television and do nothing while the battery charges on this computer.
