La-Tessa Montgomery

I attended the RWA Conference in D.C. last week.  This was my first time at Nationals and I had an excellent time.  I met some new authors (both aspiring and published), caught up with some friends I hadn’t see in a while (or ever as the case with my online critique group),  picked up a few pearls of wisdom, & attended some very informative workshops.

The best part of the conference for me was meeting some of my critique partners for the first time.  We all meet in an online workshop and hit it off, so we  formed a critique group.

Book Signings:
I missed the Avon book signing (because I didn’t know about it) but I made sure to attend the Harlequin, Pocket Book, Berkley, Grand Central, NAL, Ballantine/Bantam, St.  Martin’s, and Sourcebooks book signings.  With this being my first RWA book signing event, I went into the Harlequin signing with my money ready to purchase a few books and get them signed.  Imagine my happy shock and surprise when I was promptly told to put my money away because all the books were free.  Wait a second, free books???  And from some of my favorite authors???

Woohoo!!!

Here are a few, just a few, of the authors I got a chance to meet and chat with:

 Social Events

I attended both The Gathering (sponsored by the FF&P chapter) and the Samhain Publishing wine meet & greet.   The Gathering was a lot of fun, mostly because I met Allison, one of my critique partners, (see photo at top) for the first time and we got to hang out for a tiny bit.  One of the best parts about The Gathering was getting the chance to put a face with the names of several people that I communicate with online via the message boards.  Oh and let me not forget, Ms. Jade Lee is a trip!  LOL.

After dinner and the PRISM awards, they hosted a panel consisting of many of the PRISM award winners.  It was quite interesting and I learned of a new author (well, new to me at least), Leanna Renee Hieber.   She spoke of the need for perseverance and determination in all aspiring authors.  But the most important thing I got from her was to not write to the trends of the market, but to write the story of your heart. 

She’d been writing and trying to get her upcoming novel, The Strangely Beautiful Tale of Miss Percy Parker, published for 10 before she got her big break.  Talk about perseverance.  The Strangely Beautiful Tale… is a combination Victorian Paranormal/Gothic-y story.  I read the preview she included with our gift bags and let me tell you, I did not want to like this story.  But after reading the first 3 chapters, I am eagerly awaiting its release on August 25.

 

Thanks for reading my conference recap.  I know I haven’t touched on any of the workshops I took, but I may do another post about those later.  In the meantime, head over to the RWA site and browse through the list of workshops that were conducted.  I believe they are selling both DVDs and audio recordings of many of the workshops.  Also, I believe the handouts may also be available for download on the site.

If you are interested in reading about my sightseeing adventures in D.C., head over to my personal blog .

There were 3 keynote speakers at conference this year, Janet Evanovich, Linda Howard and Eloisa James.  All three ladies gave excellent speeches and I brought back 1 main piece of advice ( pearl of wisdom) from each of their talks.

Janet Evanovich:
Janet opened the conference with a  witty and inspirational Q & A session.  She spoke about her road to publication (it took her 10 years), the importance of writing daily (because being an author is a real job and must be treated as such), and how as an author, you are responsible for your career.

From Janet I got pearl of wisdom #1:  Never save anything.  She stressed the importance of not saving ideas for scenes, story lines, or dialogues for “the next book”, because frankly, they may never be a “next book”.

Linda Howard
Linda delivered a hilarious talk during the luncheon on Thursday.  She regaled us with “laugh out loud” stories ranging from how she ended up being the keynote speaker (she committed while still under the effects of local anesthesia-lol), to tales about her family.  From Linda came pearl of wisdom #2:  If she can write while being Keeper of the Nuts ( i.e. her family), then so can I.    Linda shared her stories to encourage us to not give up on our dreams and to persevere in the face of challenge, regardless of the number of distractions you may have going on.  And let me tell you, she had tons  to deal with- LOL.

Eloise James
Elosie spoke at the luncheon on Friday.  While she had her humorous moments, her talk was a bit more serious in nature.  She spoke of  how she got into writing Regency Romance with degrees from Harvard, Oxford, and Yale; and parents who are well know authors in their own right (Robert Bly–poet and National Book Award winner, and Carol Bly–and award winning author of short stories and essays).  She shared some touching anecdotes, one of which leads me to pearl of wisdom #3: Use all of your emotions, (fear, pain, humor, etc.), and pour them on the page. 

Eloise shared with us that she had some complications while pregnant, and she feared she would miscarry.  So she took all of that fear and poured it on the page while she wrote scenes in which her heroine miscarried.  She was emotional spent afterwards, but she said the effort was well worth it as she was able to produce a very heart wrenching scene that conveyed the emotion she was going for.

Yes, each speaker made many salient points and dispense several pieces of sage advice; however, these 3 pearls were the most important points for me, and keep them with me in my writing going forth.

I came across the Life After Agent, Part 1 article by Dean Wesley Smith via the message boards on the FF&P site.  Now I’m a newbie to this industry, but I found this article very interesting and conversation starting.  (To read it, click on the blue hyperlinked text above.)   

Mr. Smith’s article takes a look at what life would be like if the role of agent just dissappeared one day.  He provides bits of history on the publishing industry and speaks to the roles & responsibilities of agents  in relation to those of the writer and the editor.

It’s a very though provoking article, to say the least.  And it did challenge some of my beliefs about agents and their role in the grand scheme of things.  All in all, it’s given me a bit of perspective, which we all need from time to time.  My main take away is this quote : “YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR OWN CAREER.”

Great advice.

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