I really needed to hear Dan Wells’ presentation on plotting and pacing. It is exactly where I am right now in the tree.love novel. And it helped me get through the little block I was having. I was able to get some great brainstorming in during some of the more, shall we say, content-light presentations of the conference.

I’ll share my notes about this soon.

It was a great event.

Jessica emailed me the next day and said she had a great time, and Brandon stayed so long he missed his writing group meeting.

We had about 50 people there (adults and children). Each of them talked for about 20 minutes on their books and how they got the ideas and why they wrote them. Interestingly, the girls were more interested in Jessica’s work (she has female protagonists) and the boys were more interested in Brandon’s (his youth book has a male protag). I guess it is true about boys not wanting to read female protags. I must have really been a weird kid, because I didn’t mind at all when I was that age. I loved to read anything.

Interestingly, Brandon talked about how he hated to read, up until about the 8th grade because all the books he was given to read all seemed to be about boys who have dogs or moms who die at the end. And he just didn’t want to read that stuff. Then, he was given a nice fat epic fantasy and he loved it.

Jessica talked about how here parents didn’t let her have a really big dog, a sword, or a horse, and those are the things she likes and wants to read, so she writes about them.

The kids asked them some good questions, like how they get their ideas and how to make characters more interesting and real. I’ve heard the answers before (they are the basic stuff we all know already), but it was good for the young’uns.

Several people bought books and had them signed, so I think they both found it to be well worth their time (or at least, I hope they did).

CottonTree Inn
10695 S. Auto Mall Drive
Sandy, Utah 84070

FEATURED PRESENTER:
Timothy Travaglini
Senior Editor at G.P. Putnam’s Sons
(a division of Penguin Group, USA)

In the works: Friday Night Entertainer: David Nibley
Panel: Finding an agent
Panel: LDS Publishers
One-to-one interviews with editors/agents

And your favorites:
Writing Contest
Boot Camp
Exclusive Book Store

Special Announcement:
Saturday Night: The Whitney Awards Gala?
Recognizing excellence in fiction by LDS authors

More information at: http://www.ldstorymakers.com/conference.html

Guests to include:

Running from February 14-16, 2008.

Admission is FREE!

This should be a blast. I may even enter the writing contest.The deadline is in January, so I’ll have to see where I’m at by then.