Tag: writing conference

Falling into NaNoWriMo

Laura Highcove

Hey, thanks so much for stopping by and checking on how I’m doing. It’s officially fall and we had a great one this year. Two weeks of high 60s, low 70s with 40s overnight. All with the gradual shifting of the trees to their autumnal colors. Beautiful!


So bringing you up to speed, I attended SiWC for the first time. Luckily it was all online, because I’m not sure I would go all the way to California for a conference, even without covid. This was the official alternate meeting place for the displaced Writing Excuses Cruise. Not getting to go on the cruise this year was one of the bigger disappointments, but thankfully I was able to get a little bit of the Wxr Cruise feel around the SiWC.


I attended some Wxr events in the week leading up to the start of the conference itself. Thursday was an all day masterclass, then Fri-Sun were the conference workshops. I learned about plotting, conflict, decolonization, word choice, social media, and endings just to name a few. I’m going to be sorting through that information for a while yet, I’m sure.


And now that October is almost over, it’s time to look ahead to NaNoWriMo! This year has really been rough for writing. Covid simply killed my motivation for several months, and I’ve been working my way back up. This year I’m looking forward to NaNo as a way to just get through the rest of the rough draft for the end of The Storyteller Trilogy so it can be complete. Not only does it mean I’ll finally get to know what happens, but I want to help these characters finish their journey, AND I want to move on to the next project.


I’m also making the shift to a journal entry a week. Every two weeks made it hard for me to remember. Plus, I use these journal entries mostly to reevaluate where I am in my writing and to reset goals if needed, and truthfully, I probably need that weekly right now.

WXR 2018: Finding My Tribe

Laura Highcove

I started listening to Writing Excuses at the end of season nine, so 2014. And after getting part way into season 10, I went back and listened to the archives. All of them. I found out about the cruise in 2016, and I applied for the scholarship for the past two years, but finally saved up enough money to go this year. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I hung around on the Google group where everyone was talking for months ahead of time. I picked my roommate, Morgan, because she wrote fantasy and didn’t snore.

But it wasn’t until the Saturday when I flew into Houston that the people-interactions really started. I met Eric in the airport using the Discord app everyone was on for conversing on the cruise. Then, since Morgan’s flight was delayed, (There was rough weather, most people got delayed.) Eric and I met up with Michelle and we all shared an Uber to the hotel. Both of them had been on the cruise before, and Michelle let me tag along into the group of people she knew as soon as we got to the hotel. Everyone seemed really nice and entirely non-threatening.

After picking up registration bags, we went behind the waterfall where they had swag for us. I went up to a table with books on it, because of course I did, and the person behind the table began to describe the books. I had to reboot because the voice that was speaking was Dan Wells, and I was entirely unprepared to hear that voice in a non-podcast situation. Then Howard Taylor said something from the table beside him, which furthered the surrealism, and I had to ask Dan to repeat himself because I hadn’t heard what he actually said. He was very nice about it, which bolstered my confidence further, so when I turned and saw Mary Robinette Kowal at a third table, and walked over and asked if she could also speak for me to complete the blowing of my mind. She acquiesced.

I managed to work through the “getting to know you” sheet where you get people to sign your paper based on something about them, like what genre they write or what their job is, by actually talking to people. Though, in truth, I was given a task, and I am good at task completion. But it was also a very comfortable situation. Then those of us who went on the NASA tour further bonded by living through the torrential downpour on our cart train that had no sides.

That night was the cocktail reception, and oddly enough, I settled right into talking with people. Part of it was by that time I had bonded with my roommate, and I’m always braver when I have someone I know around, and part of it was that I sat at a table and almost everyone was a genre writer. Even if I do attend other writing events, I rarely find genre writers, and if I do, they’re all YA. (Not that I have anything against YA. I just feel like I never find adult fantasy writers.) So again, it felt a little surreal to ask what everyone was writing and have so many of them be my same genre.

At this point I was still rather intimidated by the hosts, but I still managed to get my books signed and to ask them to hug my stuffed animal gryffin (That I’ve had all the people who are important in/to my life hug). It was also the first time I was able to meet Brandon Sanderson. I cried a bit, I’ll admit it, but he was perfectly accommodating, and he signed my book and took a picture with me grinning like a silly fangirl. My one regret about the whole situation was that I was simply too overwhelmed to approach him as a writer. It doesn’t help that he wasn’t on the cruise, so while I got to see Mary Robinette, Howard, and Dan as real people, he’s still Brandon Sanderson. At least for now.

The introduction/instruction speech that came at the end of the reception really helped to settle things in my mind, and solidify the feel of what to expect from the cruise. All of the instructors and the helpful team were introduced, as well as the rules for how to treat each other. I know the Wxr hosts have always been pretty big on making a space safe for everyone there, and I was really starting to feel that.

The next day we got on the boat and that’s when things finally started to settle a bit in my mind. All of the Wxrers had red badges that hung from our necks, meaning we could spot each other through the, well frankly, massive crowd of muggles who were on the cruise as well. The classes were simply amazing, though that’s fodder for another post. We all ate dinner together rotating tables so we got to meet other people, as well as the hosts. Morgan and I sat with Dan, Howard, and Mary Robinette on various nights.

And I found the most amazing thing happening. I was interacting with people. People I didn’t know very well, but it was like that red badge was magic. As soon as I saw it, I would meet the other person’s gaze and wave, and they would do the same. Or I could just walk up and start a conversation. We were able to just be comfortable around each other, as people, because we had been brought together by this cruise.

I am not normally one to join in or participate in conversations. I like being on the sidelines, listening to other people say interesting things, but never feeling like I have anything to add to most conversations. And if I do, it’s usually a quick comment and then over. Only at the dinner table, I found so many people with topics they wanted to discuss that were interesting and that I had something to say about. One night I started talking about Supernatural and fan fiction, and I realized almost halfway through the night that I was actually having a good time participating in a conversation. That I had things to say, that these were topics in which I was interested. I have never before had such an actual lengthy conversation with people in a group setting like this, not even among my friends.

I also hopped into a discussion on magic system creation where I felt emboldened to add some to the conversation. And I jumped into a quickly created critique group that all looked at the part of my story, I’ve been trying to fix forever and thought was “okay”, and told me it still didn’t work. And I felt safe getting that feedback, and glad that they were willing to say something.

I had, for the first time, actually found my tribe. So much so that I cried when it was time to leave the boat. After my flight landed in Atlanta I found myself looking through the crowds for red badges and being sad when I remembered I wouldn’t be seeing any. I clung to Discord, that last connection I had to them, and I mourned not being on the cruise anymore.

For the first time I really understood Daisy’s reaction in Agents of SHIELD, after she’s freed from Hive’s control, and she throws herself at him again, begging for him to let her back in. I felt like I had been removed from a situation that felt so right for the first time in my life, that I wasn’t sure what to do without it. Maybe I’m being overly dramatic, and maybe I’m not. But I know I need to figure out a way to be able to go on the cruise again next year. And for now, I’m very grateful for Discord and for everyone involved with putting on and attending this cruise.

How I’ve Dulled my Social Anxiety

Laura Highcove 4 Comments

There was never a point at which I suddenly realized I was a shy person. I just always knew I was shy and for the most part I didn’t care. I stayed out of people’s way and they stayed out of mine.

Wanting to Change

A desire for change came from the place of realizing that being shy would be a hindrance to becoming successful as an author. In these days of social media, podcasts, and conventions, lingering in the shadows keeps you from being seen and being seen is important. These days, people want to interact with the people who write the books they love, and being seen helps to get your book out there. Often, the authors that I connect with (and thus buy the books of) are authors who are open, friendly, and personable.

Now I have made great strides in this front over the past five years or so, but I still remember being so excited about going to my first writer’s conference and how confidant I felt, until I ended up in a corner, clutching my umbrella for dear life while the other writers around me chatted with each other. I had grown comfortable in my own circles but had no skill at accessing that confidence in a new place with new people. I spent the first day of this conference flitting from place to place, as invisible as I always was.

Set Small, Reasonable Goals

By the second day, I realized how unreasonable it had been to expect myself to walk up to strangers in a place I had never been before and make small talk. That is not something in my skill set, and expecting it of myself was unfair.

As such, I gave myself an easier goal: Walk up to the fantasy author who had just given a panel and thank him. Not as big of an ask, I had gotten to know the author a bit through his panel and it is expected for people to go up and talk to him afterward. I just inserted myself into that place. He was friendly and encouraging.

When I went to Writer’s Digest for the first time later that year, I gave myself the small goal of exchanging business cards with someone. Just one person.

At a third conference I challenged myself to speak with just one agent. (Though I had a long list of them I had looked up prior, to give myself more options. This one was particularly tough.)

I also willingly! went to a retreat for public speaking. You can read more about that here.

The important thing was to not overload myself with expectations. I looked at what I was comfortable doing and I pushed myself to do a bit more.

Setting Up for Success

Let’s face it, the world is a scary place and I’ve found that I do far better in certain situations. If I need to talk to people I have never met before, I need to be in a familiar setting. If I need to go to a new place, it’s better for me to be with someone I know. This year was my second year at Writer’s Digest and I bunked with a writer I knew online, and several people from the DIY MFA team were there.

It was the best time I’ve ever had at a conference because I was comfortable in the setting and with the people there. And because of that, I was able to go into the Pitch Slam with more confidence than I would’ve thought possible.

I’m going to World Fantasy Con this next month in Texas for the first time and my mother is going with me. She’s not going to the convention proper, but we’re going to spend time hanging around the city together around the convention, and I expect that that bit of familiarity (along with the fact that I’ve been going Otakon for over a decade now) will greatly help my confidence levels in the new situation of the con.

Forgiving your Failures

I’ve given myself goals that I’ve been unable to fulfill. I’ve gotten in line to talk to authors before and then walked away because I got in my head too much and scared myself out of wanting to talk to them. The worst thing you can do in this case is berate yourself after the fact. It won’t change anything at that point. The best thing to do is look forward and either try again or give yourself (temporary) permission to stop.

After I had talked to six or seven agents at the Pitch Slam (and had done really well) I realized that I was emotionally drained and even though the time wasn’t completely up, I gave myself permission to stop pushing, because it’s just what I needed at that point.

Knowing your limits is going something everyone has to learn for themselves. Sometimes you’ll push too far and other times you won’t push far enough. You just have to keep being honest with yourself and keep trying to improve.

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.

Gabir’s Arc (Aug 14 – 27, 2017)

Laura Highcove

So these past few weeks were rather busy. After Otakon I spent a few days with my husband’s family and I got a good amount of writing done in the mornings. I got my Scrivener outline done and started to fill in the scenes that involved Gabir.

On Thursday the 17th I went up to New York City for Writer’s Digest Conference. Had a lot of great stuff happen there, from the panels, to seeing other DIY MFA people, and the Pitch Slam (speed dating for authors and agents). I’m working on a post for what happened at the conference that will be posted later. I am going to be putting the details of the pitch slam in my newsletter so sign up for that if you haven’t already if you’re interested in hearing more about it.

I had a great time overall, but I neglected to remember/predict how hard I would crash on getting home. After being gone from home for almost two weeks I needed decompression/organization time. I barely worked on any writing until Friday which means I didn’t finish Gabir’s arc. On the other hand, my house looks beautiful. 😀

The plan is to finish up Gabir’s arc and then move on to Wildrose’s arc.

As a side note: During the drive, my hubby pointed out that my numbers for how much I planned on writing for NaNoWriMo were wrong. I had gone back and forth on how much I was planning to write and when, and I think I just got my numbers crossed. (I have a math minor but that doesn’t mean I’m good at it, just that I know more math exists than most people.) Here are the actual, correct numbers:

26 days (since I’m taking Fridays off) x 2.5k a day = 65k total

Next Step

Laura Highcove

I typed a blog post on Saturday saying that I had a plan to finish smoothing the rest of my novel by my deadline of Friday. I let the post sit until Sunday, as I usually do, before posting. In that time I finished smoothing the rest of the novel and sent it out to my beta readers. As such, my plan is finished before the post had time to enter the world. Yay to me.

Then I researched agents who will be at the James River Writer’s Conference that I’m going to this weekend. That didn’t take too much time. I also went to the bookstore to try and find some Arabian fairy tales, but that didn’t work. So now I’m a little lost. I don’t want to start on a new project right before NaNoWriMo. At the same time, I don’t know what to do with myself when I don’t spend time on writing. I figure maybe I should just sit down and write and see what happens. I am a discovery writer after all.

Writer Igniter Con

Laura Highcove

So this past weekend I went to the first ever Writer Igniter Con put on by Gabriela Pereira the instigator of DIYMFA. The best part was it was all online, so I didn’t have to travel beyond my couch.

Day One
The conference started on time and the digital conference room we were in was really a nice format with slides in the middle and a chat to the side so everyone could interact and ask questions without interrupting the presenter.
We had sessions on making a great outline, seven easy steps to a better novel, a guide to the first five pages of a story, and one on rocking your revisions. Some of the information was a refresher since I’ve taken the DIYMFA101 course before, but it’s always good to be reminded of the basics and I also got a lot of new tips since at DIYMFA they are always striving to make their content better.

First Page Critiques
There were also a chance for attendees to submit the first page of their manuscript anonymously and have some agents give a critique on it.
When we got to my first page, I was so glad there was a computer in front of me instead of real people. I could be as embarrassed as I needed to be about my page being read out loud. It actually went over pretty well with the agents. Much better than I was expecting, which felt super good.

Day Two
The second day dealt with the business side of writing more than the craft.
There was a session on copyright law which talked about how copyright works for authors, as well as a bit of advice on contract law, for those contracts we all hope to sign one day. It was a dense class, but had a lot of good information.
There were also sessions for marketing and social media, how to write a proposal, and an open panel where we could ask the presenters anything we wanted.

Meeting new People
And, of course, one of the best things about writing conferences is meeting new people. I am always on the look out for new writing friends and I even found two fantasy writers to exchange emails with.

And Beyond
With fresh encouragement and new techniques on the brain, courtesy of WICon, I am preparing for NaNoWriMo. I finished a revision pass of the first half of The Storyteller, which is now clocking in at about 50k words. During November, I will be writing the second half of the book from scratch, since I am still struggling there. I am hoping for a little ‘pantser’ magic to get some good stuff on the page that I can then revise into the second half of the book I need.

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.