Conference Season

It's not long now till the RNA's Annual Conference, at Newton Rigg, Penrith, starting on the 13th July.

Bliss.

The Conference packs have arrived (if you haven't yet book, there are still a few places - snatch them quick!) and the annual pleasure of browsing the sessions and the annual agony of trying to choose which options to pick has begun.

Jan Jones has, as always, done a brilliant job of making sure there's something for everyone, whether you're starting out or multi-pubbed, interested in YA books or sweet short fiction.  Just sitting her writing this blog, I keep getting distracted by reading contributor bios or trying to decide between a drama workshop or something from Vulpes Libres.

My perception of the Conference has shifted a lot over the *cough*decade*cough* or so I've been going.  I've attended as a wide-eyed newbie, as an unpublished writer, blooded by my first serious rejections and once, memorably, having just given my first serious rejection of an offered contract.  I've attended - even more memorably - as a newly published author, as a contributor.  I've turned up tired, sick and hopeless, and ecstatic, empowered and feeling invincible.  I've always left feeling better equipped, better informed, and more resilient.  Frequently I've left making fantastic friends.

Last year I was honoured to be asked to facilitate the First Timers' Network, making sure new attendees have a chance to get to know each other before arriving, and have any support they need when they get there.  That was a new experience for me, too.

This year there's a something new for me, too.  This year, with the help of the lovely ladies of Belfagan, I'm going to be leading a session on morris dancing.

As you do.

RNA Conference 2011

The RNA Conference is always a highlight of my year. I love re-connecting with old friends and making new ones. I love the workshops and the celebrations.
I do find it all a bit dazing, though. All those voices in small spaces, all those faces and names... by the end of the first evening I'm always reeling a bit, in danger of losing my voice and with a ringing in my ears usually only experienced after an AC/DC gig.

So, though my ringing ears and reeling brain, and delivered to you in a croaky voice, these are my impressions...

Lizzy Kremer did a fantastic overview of contracts and what to look out for. She reminded us to read a contract with an eye to the best and worse case scenarios - will this clause work for me if the book bombs? And if it takes off, what then?
Louise Allen, Elizabeth Chadwick and Jill Mansell showed us (whether they meant to or not) just how hard working award winning novelists are, and that there as many processes in writing a book as there are authors writing them. Oh, and Louise mentioned that one of her working titles was once rumoured to be Gonad the Barbarian...

I met someone who edited memoirs of soldiers in the Peninsula War, someone who (like me) is fascinated by the breakthroughs of early scientists, someone who recently signed a six-book contract and someone who is interested to find out if pregnancy hormones are going to make her write the best book ever, or the worst book ever...

I learned that there are three golf balls on the moon.... and that shoe envy can be offset by knowing that said shoes are really, really painful.

Louise Allen ran through some of the basic mistakes that all authors can be prone to, for the benefit of our New Writers' Scheme members, including the ones about punctuation, Point of View, and that if you're moaning that a reader "didn't get it" then you're not doing your job as an author.... (and I've caught myself moaning that one myself once or twice!)

Valerie Webster taught us that Regency dances were all about flirting, that men were happy to skip and occasionally formed a couple in the dance if there weren't enough women, that a deep curtsey is Victorian, not Regency, and that I have two left feet.

Elizabeth Hawksley reminded us that characters that feel real have to be seen in their world in the round - showing how they relate to themselves, friends, family, their work, passions, goals... and that at some point a hero must develop emotional goals and recognise them for that.

When Cally Taylor won the Elizabeth Goudge Trophy, and Liz Fenwick came second and I was in the shortlist of six, I remembered what talented company I was in.

And all in all I remembered just how lucky I am to be an RNA member, and how priveleged to be part of this crowd of talented, hard working, savvy, no-prisoners, creative women, with hearts as big as the world.

(If you're on Twitter, follow the fun on #RNAConf11)

Anniversary

This post is in haste; I'm off to the Romantic Novelists' Association conference today.

Last year's conference, in Greenwich, was when all of us Heroine Addicts met up, drank wine, and decided to do a group blog together. I remember walking by the Thames, fanning ourselves from the heat; I remember escaping for coffee and climbing to Greenwich Observatory; I remember drinking wine and laughing; I remember sitting, hungover and tired from lack of sleep, in McDonald's having breakfast, and yet still being inspired; I remember tense waiting for the results of a contest which none of us won, and being thrilled anyway; I remember finding a quiet dark corner to talk research while others were sleeping; I remember sudden moments of exclaiming "Yes! Me too!", silly moments of shoe-appreciation, and comforting moments of silence.

This writing business is often exciting, but it's never easy and having good friends to share it with means more to me than I can say.

Here's to you, fellow Heroine Addicts. It's been a great year. Let's have another.

Anna's at the conference, too, but she'll post when she gets back, I should think.

Stage Fright

A few years ago, I attended a talk by a famous literary agent where she told us about the things an author might have to do, such as talks, book signings, and perhaps radio and TV appearances. At question time I gathered up all my courage and asked, “what happens if you’re an author and you’re a shy little wallflower type person?” She frowned at me and just said “You can’t be”. Right. But I was!

Don’t get me wrong – I love being the centre of attention in a small way (I’m a Leo so that comes with the territory) and don’t have any problems chatting to strangers. Speaking to a large audience, however, is a different matter. Then I’m far from confident and envy those people who can just stand up and keep a crowd enthralled. How do they do it?

I don’t ever feel that I have anything very interesting to say and I’m useless at being funny. At least intentionally. I once fell into a shop window in Oxford Street by mistake (I thought there was a glass partition protecting the dummies and leaned on it, except there wasn’t so I landed in a pile of fake snow) and that caused a great deal of amusement. In fact, my brother still laughs every time he even thinks about it. Sadly, I can’t perform such feats on command.

Some people seem to be born comedians and/or talkers and they’re never lost for words. Me, I’m the kind of person who always thinks of the witty repartee AFTER the conversation is finished. That’s why I became a writer, because then I have the time to think about it first! But that’s no good when you have to promote your book.

I’ve come a long way since that agent’s talk, but public speaking still gives me stage fright. I am learning though and in order to improve I even did a one-day course in public speaking, which was great. We learned that preparation is key – things like knowing your audience (what kind of people are they? what do they expect from you?), arriving early so the location doesn’t give you any nasty surprises, knowing your subject and being enthusiastic about it – this all helps. Always have three main messages that you want to get across and not lose sight of them. And it’s okay to be nervous, the adrenaline may even help.

I’m not sure I remembered any of those things during my recent attempt at public speaking as part of a panel at the RNA conference, but it went better than I thought so perhaps there’s still hope for me. At least I proved to myself that I can actually do it if I have to and practice makes perfect, right?

Anyone else a shy wallflower? And if so, how have you overcome that in order to do talks? I’d love to know.

Don't forget to pop back on Thursday, when Liz Fenwick will be posting.

Finding Time

Susanna’s not wrong: this year’s RNA conference at Greenwich was something special.

Not just because of the meeting of like minds, but because we were celebrating 50 years of the RNA. And because we were doing so at Greenwich, just down the hill from the Royal Observatory and the home of Greenwich Mean Time and the Prime Meridian of the world.

At the conference, Joanna Trollope spoke about how story telling is an ancient art, but novels have been with us for a relatively short time. A panel of Mary Nichols, Marina Oliver, Jan Jones, Julie Cohen and Jean Fullerton reflected on the past 50 years in romantic fiction (you can read the report here.) Between workshops, a few of us ambled up the sun-baked hill to pay our respects to the Meridian.

Time, time, time.

It made me think. You see, time has always been a bit of a bugbear to me. Not in the another-year-another-wrinkle sense. No, I’ve been more preoccupied with finding – with MAKING – time for writing.

This year, I think I’ve been doing better. In February, I joined an online challenge to write 50,000 words in the month. With friends cheering me on, tight management of the day job, Husband resigned to a month of quick suppers, and a quite ruthless abandonment of housework, I managed it. I made writing my first priority, and set aside all available time to do it.

It was good to do, but that white-knuckle write-a-thon left me with so many loose plot ends, I’ve been struggling to edit the monster every since. So now I’m trying a different approach. The 100x100 challenge aims to instill a habit of writing every day – with either 100 words or 30 minutes of editing as a minimum, every day, for 100 days. If you miss a day, you start your 100 days again. It sounds easy.

It’s not. It only takes a visitor, or a computer crash, or a domestic disaster, and suddenly it’s way past your bedtime, and the prospect of spending 30 minutes doing anything but sleeping is horrifying. So far, I’ve had to restart four times. But now I’m on day 14 and I think it’s going to stick…

What about you? What do you do to make time for things that matter to you, and how to you defend that time against those daily challenges?

Don't forget to pop back on Sunday, when Christina Courtenay will be posting.

In Praise of Conferences

I love conferences. Whoever first came up with the idea of combining travel, parties, and professional development, and tossing in a luncheon and a banquet and a really good excuse to buy new shoes, deserves a medal in my book. But there are conferences and conferences – the larger ones are wonderful, but privately I’m partial to the smaller ones, like Bloody Words in Canada, and the Romantic Novelists’ Association conference, which was held this year in Greenwich.

They’re less dizzying, these conferences. More welcoming. And in that kind of atmosphere, amazing things can happen. Case in point: On my first day in Greenwich, I found Julie Cohen and Christina Courtenay, both fellow writers I had met before and liked and kept in touch with, and Liz Fenwick, whom I’d briefly met a year ago in London and whose blog I liked to follow. And before I knew it Liz was texting wake-up calls and taking me for breakfast at McDonalds where I met her good friend Biddy (also friends with Julie and Christina), and that evening everybody introduced me to their good friend Anna, and we all just got along so well that by the barbecue on Saturday, while we were sitting drinking wine (as one must, at these conferences) somebody said – and I confess it might have been myself – but someone said, ‘You know what we should do? We ought to start a group blog.’

And the others, who were also drinking wine, thought it a Very Good Idea.

So we’ve started one, and here it is.

Which goes to show you, many good and unexpected things can come from conferences. Has anything happened to you at a conference? Did you make a lifelong friend? Meet someone famous who really inspired you? Get lost in the hotel? We’d love to hear your story.