I know that I mentioned going to Fyrecon a few weeks ago but I’ve been so busy last couple of weekends I haven’t had time to talk about the convention itself.

First of all an explanation. Fyrecon is a new writing and art convention. This year the event was held at the Weber State University extension campus in Layton and offered several classes on  various art mediums, writing technique, and business practices. Master classes were also available for an additional cost.

I did go ahead and pay extra to attend a class taught by David Farlan on the business of writing. David Farlan — for those of you who don’t know — is a best-selling science fiction and fantasy writer who taught many best selling authors over the years including Brandon Sanderson, Brandon Mu ll, Dan Wells and Stephanie Meyers — you might not like sparkly vampires but you can’t argue with her profit margin.  Yeah, so basically he’s like the Yoda of the writing world. The class was well worth the money. The advice David gave on how the market worked and what options were open to writers was invaluable and — not gonna lie — a touch overwhelming. Seriously by the end of it I was like, “I need to go home and rethink my life.”

All of the other classes and panels I attended were just as good and since this was the first year of the conference there were not nearly as many people which for me was a good thing. The class sizes were small (some even as small as two people) which meant that I actually had the opportunity to interact more with the instructors who are mostly all seasoned professionals who have a lot of knowledge and a lot of personality. I also got to know some of the other local writers some who are traditionally published, some who are successfully self published and some who are still working on breaking in.

The entire experience was incredibly mind opening — I’d say eye opening but it was really my brain that closed– and I am so thankful to my friend M.K. Hutchins — whose book DRIFT you should totally go buy — for telling me about this event. I look forward to going to more of these types of conferences in the future and hope that any of you who are considering making writing your business — it’s definitely more than just a job — would do so too.

BOOK RECOMMENDATION

DRIFT by M.K. Hutchins

Drift is a Young Adult novel about a boy named Tenjat who lives on an island on the back of a giant turtle in a sea filled with monsters called naga beasts. Tenjat joins the Handlers to try and forge a richer marriage free life for himself, but when the turtle must stop and feed even a novice like Tenjat is required to fight of the naga beasts and the possibility of romance throws a wrench into his well laid plans.

THINGS I LEARNED: THE QUICK LIST THAT’S NOT SO QUICK

Pitching a story idea to editors and agents is TERRIFYING! Even if you’d been joking easily with them two minutes earlier and the stuff you’re pitching isn’t even your own.

Use the senses in your writing.

Make your sentences do more than one thing at a time — this is more for the revision stage when it comes to the first draft be like Nike and just do it.

Writing is a BUSINESS and requires you to think like a business man/woman.

Professional Sci-Fi and Fantasy writers are the biggest nerds on the planet which makes them my kind of people.

Networking is a great tool. I might not be ready yet to tap into those contacts I made, but when I am I know people I would possibly want to work with.

Hello all you patrons and participants of the literary arts,

There is a truth at one time or another all writers must face (actually this is  a lie. Writers have to face this particular truth several times in their careers and I argue several time with every piece they produce).  What is this reality that we strive to avoid? Okay here’s goes … are you ready?

Writing isn’t always fun. I know this comes as a shock to some of you but those who have dabbled with pen and ink know that sometimes writing can be difficult especially if you are trying to give your reads the best possible experience as you can which is of course what you should always be doing.

Lately I’ve been struggling to figure out the best way for book two of the Traveler’s Guide series to go and I had found that my usual pantsing method wasn’t working as well as it usually does my characters though interesting on their own were not coming together and focusing on the task at hand, i.e. what I wanted them to do. I’ve been trying to figure this out for the last couple of weeks now and I think I hit upon my solution.

Outlining.

Okay it’s more of a very loose outline but I figure if it works for grade school reports maybe it will work here too.

Basically I’ve had a vague plan in my head of important things I want my characters to experience and eventually where I want them to end up, but the problem is getting there. This is trickier than it sounds since I do have a lot of characters a lot of settings and as always I do want my characters’ emotions and decisions to feel genuine not forced. Still I felt like I needed to develop some kind of structure that made logical sense to get from point to point.

The solution to my problem came in the form of creating a chapter by chapter guide for my travelers that looks like this…

Chapter One

POV: (This is the character whose perspective we’ll be viewing the action from, A few of the POV entries in my outline have multiple people indicating that I might have more than one POV in the chapter or that I’m not sure yet which character’s POV I want to use.)

Setting: (This is the setting where the characters are in the beginning of the chapter sometimes there are multiple settings if I know for sure in that chapter that they will be in more than one place other times I have left the setting slightly vague such as “On the Road”.)

Goal/ Theme: (Okay, so nobody gets too confused in my outline goal and theme are slightly different. The “goal” of the chapter generally refers to something that the character wants to have  happen or something they are working to accomplish while the “theme” of the chapter is something I want the character to do or realize about themselves or an emotional setting.)

End: (This one seems a little redundant but I think it will prove helpful. The “end” is where I want the story to be at the you guessed it end of the chapter. This helps me know when to stop writing and move on to a new scene and most often a new character perspective.)

I’m excited to take my outline and see how it can help me to have more productive and focused writing sessions in the future.

Now if you’ll excuse me I have a story to write.

Happy New Year everyone! It’s time for new years resolutions and goals that most of us will keep for about two weeks before deciding that it’s just not worth the effort. Hooray for us!
Seriously though I hope that all of you will have a lot of success with this new year whether or not you make any goals. I know that I have made some goals for this new year and a few of them have to do with all of you.
I feel that over the past few months I have been neglecting all of you and I am sorry for that. I will strive to be more diligent about posting weekly or at least bi-weekly on the projects I’m working on. To help me do this I would love to hear from all of you on things that you would love to learn more about or things you would like to happen in the future or questions that you guys might have for me about Sign of the Wolf and the world of the Traveler’s Guide, or if you have any questions about writing.
There are some things I want to try in the near future, but I ask you guys for your patience as I’m still really haven’t mastered all the ins and outs of all the ways to share on social media, or how to work with some of the technology I need to do some of the things I have planned. (Problem’s of being an old fashioned girl in a modern world).
I’m excited for the new year and new possibilities and I hope all of you are too.
Thanks so much for all your continued support!

It has been a little over a week since the release of my first book Sign of the Wolf. I’m truly grateful to all of you who have shown your support by purchasing my book and I hope that as you read the book you will enjoy it as much as I do.

If you end up loving Helm and Fein and their story as much as I do please spread the love and support the book by leaving reviews on amazon.

As always thank you so much for sharing this journey with me.

A book in the hand is worth two in the bush. That’s how the saying goes right?

Either way I’m super excited this week to have an actual physical copy of Sign of the Wolf in my hands. Some how even though I’ve been working on this bad boy for a few years it hasn’t seemed quite real until this moment. Now I can official say that I am an author. What an exciting yet terrifying thing.

Again I am so very thankful for all of the people in my life who have made this book possible and I hope that I can continue to tell stories for you all to enjoy. And maybe I’ll even figure out how to use the internet one of these days. 🙂

I am a writer. How do I know this? I sat down one day and thought it’d be a good idea to tell a story then I was crazy enough to actually do it. That’s how I know. That and although my story telling is fairly good, my grammar not so much so that ruled out being an editor.

Honestly I’ve always loved reading and writing, even when it meant getting in trouble in 8th grade English for doing it which when you think about it is kind of ironic. The initial idea for my first series The Traveler’s Guide  actually came to me when I was in 10th grade sitting bored out of my mind in a math class. Years later I’ve put those ideas to good use, though the finished product is nothing like the initial idea.