I used half a pen’s worth of ink taking 35+ pages of notes at LTUE. The majority of those notes were stuff people said that was really good advice I wanted to remember, but I also had quite a few moments of inspiration and I made about a thousand notes in the margins of my notebook of ideas to implement in all my stories.
I’ve made notes about how I might fix Rose, which I am sure I want to fix and finish, but I still am not quite sure how. LTUE inspired at least 12 ideas, including (but not limited to) shortening it to a novella, switching it out of the modern day setting and into a fantasy setting so magic will be more prominent, and giving each princess character a mental illness (Rose already shows signs of anxiety) that they have to combat.
I also made a lot more notes about Powerful that I still have to sort through. Scene ideas, magic ideas, and a lot of ideas about how each kingdom is different.
My favorite panels were the “Using History and Folklore to Enrich Your World”, “Rules for Writing Magic”, “Breaking Through Blockages”, and “Writing for Young Adults” panels. They were super helpful and very interesting. A lot of the panels sparked up debate, and basically the answer to every question was “There’s no one way to do it”. But it was still good to hear a variety of answers to every question. It was interesting to hear different ways authors motivate themselves to write, or what their process is. One author who spoke has a whole routine she goes through before she can sit down to write. It includes yoga, meditation, and music.
A few authors talked about the benefits of word sprints or speed writing. It’s where you set a time limit for yourself (it can be anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour depending on your schedule), and you give yourself a word goal to reach within that time limit. And if you don’t reach your limit you get punished. Well, you don’t have to, but it certainly helps motivate you.
There were a lot of good ideas thrown around that I’m really looking forward to implementing in my daily life. Wow, I implement a lot of ideas. Or, at least, I plan to implement a lot of ideas….
Anyway, here are the list of people I heard speak the last two days of LTUE. M. Todd Gallowglas, Michaelbrent Collings, Sandra Tayler, Renee Collins, John D. Brown, Blake Casselman, Mikey Brooks, Aneeka Richins, Jaclyn Weist, Nathan Shumate, Christopher Loke, Bree Despain, Daniel Coleman, Dave Butler, Mette Ivie Harrison, Tristi Pinkston, Kasie West, Jacob Gowans, Joe Vasicek, Dene Low, Steve Setzer, Tyler H. Jolley, Paul Genese, and Shallee McArthur.
Check out their sites to see if anything they’ve written appeals to you! I’m having fun adding books to my list.
~Alyson
