Tag: writer’s digest

Writer’s Digest 2017

Laura Highcove


Part of me knows I should’ve written this sooner after having been to WDC, but the other part of me was really busy. :p

So I headed up the NYC on Thursday the 17th after having been at Otakon in DC the past weekend and staying with my in-laws in Baltimore for the week. My train was an hour later, after I got there over an hour early, worrying that I would miss the train. So that was sort of a pain. Then, once I got on the train I had a rude exchange with one of the conductors because I was having trouble finding a seat. It took me a moment to realize that people put their stuff in the second seat in an attempt to keep anyone else from sitting next to them. So then I asked someone to please move their stuff and I achieved a seat.

I got off in Penn Station, grabbed a pretzel (because I was starving) and used Google Maps to get me on the right Subway and to the hotel. I got my WDC badge with no delay and got my room before finding my roommate in the ‘intro’ session.

We got some food and then spent the rest of the evening working on our pitches for the Pitch Slam. We spent a few hours writing and rewriting until we finally decided to call it a night and hope we would get some good advice in the Pitch Perfect session the next morning.

The Pitch Perfect session went well and gave me some good ideas for my pitch. Then I launched into a full day of panels, including Steven James’ Story Trumps Structure which was fun and full of great information and Mastering Plot Twists by Jane K. Cleland, which I was a little wary about at the start because I thought it would be too formulaic, but ended up being very helpful. That night was a great keynote from Lisa Scottoline who was boisterous and fun and made me feel super excited about the rest of the conference.

Friday night was spent at dinner with the DIY MFA crowd and then working on our pitches again. At one point I realized my writing style is just nowhere near my conversational voice and I was running into an issue where everything I wrote sounded too formal. So I wrote out the opening bit to my pitch (my name, book’s title, word count, and elevator pitch), and then I just created some bullet point-like notes in case I got really stuck and decided I was going to wing it.

Luckily I was in the first pitch slam session so I didn’t have all day to worry about it. It ended up going wonderfully and I came away with four requests for submissions from the agents I was most excited about. If you’d like to know more detail about what happened and what I learned during the pitch slam, sign up for my newsletter which will be going out next weekend.

Then it was back to panels. Another Stephen James lecture on Troubleshooting your Novel and one by Crystal King on Taking Control of your Book’s Promotion Plan which had an amazing list of things you can do to promote your book. I love lists.

Then the most amazing thing happened. I got to be a part of a DIY MFA podcast along with the other DIY MFAers who were at the conference. I was super nervous and I have no idea how I’ll end up sounding on the finished product, but it was tons of fun doing it with everyone. That podcast will be available sometime in the next month or so (I don’t know exactly). I’ll be sure to post a lot about it so you won’t miss out.

And Sunday were two nice lectures, one on Voices in my Head by Heather Webb which gave me some good ideas on trying to identify my own writing voice. And you may have noticed the ‘subtle’ link to sign up for my newsletter. I went to a lecture on Newsletter Marketing put on by Jane Friedman, so I got some amazing ideas for both promotion and putting out a newsletter that will be worth the space in your inbox.

After that I checked out the hotel and headed to the subway, only to find out the Subway’s E line that I had taken here from Penn Station was diverted for the weekend, so I had to get as close as I could and then walk the rest of the way. At least I had my rolly luggage so it wasn’t so bad. The train was right on time, I got on and found a seat immediately and read ‘The Ocean at the End of the Lane’ by Neil Gaimen, finishing just before I arrived in Baltimore, where I met with my hubby and we drove home from there.

Post ‘Vacation’ Crash

Laura Highcove

Several weeks ago (now) I went to the Writer’s Digest Conference in New York City. The next weekend I went to a horse show, and after three weeks of no downtime I crashed hard when I got home on Monday. It has taken me until now to sit down and work on any writing at all. (I haven’t written anything since two weeks ago either.)

But here is what I (thankfully) thought to write about my Writer’s Digest Conference on the train home:

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After this weekend I have a few new possible tools to try that will hopefully help me flesh out what I need to in The Storyteller, and even trim down (!?) the first part.

One major thing I learned was that I should aim to start with 60 scenes, 15 in act 1, 30 act 2, 15 act 3 with the important bits where they should be. Well I currently have 48 scenes (including the ones I added to my post it note outline that aren’t actually written yet) so I’m a little short in the first place. I also got ideas of how to come up with worthwhile subplots (because apparently character growth and a romantic sub-plot just weren’t enough) that will mean something.

However, I am happy to say that I do know what the book’s theme is and that is super important. I even ‘pitched’ my book to some people and they all seemed rather interested in it. So I think I’m on the right track, I just have to figure out the rest. I still have a goal of finishing this version of my draft by the end of the year. I need to get back into my habit of my set schedule, even though it’s harder to figure out how much I’ve gotten done because I won’t have a word count to quantify my progress.

ALSO! I really loved New York. I don’t like cities, and I would never want to live in one, but being in New York was so surreal. I’ve seen it so often in movies that when I looked around I kinda felt like I must be in a movie. And when you look down the street and just see a line of buildings that just goes on, it’s very Inception looking. The touristy areas and the business areas around Times Square and Park Ave were just so clean and well maintained and well patrolled. It was really just great. Like I’d love to visit again (WD next year!) though I doubt I would want to live there, even if I had the income to support it.

I can understand how it’s like a world of it’s own, all within that tiny little space. There’s just so much culture that grows in even those individual sections. It’s cool. Plus I had a New York Bagel, which was amazing, and New York Pizza, which was good but not world-ending good.

All in all, it was a great weekend. I gave my cards out to a bunch of people, went out with new (and old) people each night for dinner. Got a bunch of cards, and got a ton on inspiration in general. I need to go through my notes and file away the important stuff in my Writing Scriv so I can find it when I need it. Learned about plotting, and outlining, and the two keynotes speakers I heard were great. World building, and apparently the other ones weren’t amazing because I don’t remember them off the top of my head. Also a panel on new authors, which was nice just for info.

And someone did say that blogs don’t sell as many books as people really think, so encouraged us to not go nutso with the onlineness. I am happy to hear that, though I really think I was basically in that mindset anyway, I’ll just be happier now since I won’t worry quite so much about getting hardly any page views.

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Now that things are caught up to there, I have to decide if I’m going to write a post about my horse show. I figure this blog does focus mostly on my life revolving around writing, but other things are important too. I want this blog to exist so that people can get to know me, so I guess that includes the horsey stuff as well.