You know there is NOTHING better than watching awesome writers get requests from agents on the WOC forums. Big congrats to everyone who got feedback and requests - you deserve it!
Once again, the Con offered amazing advice, laughs, and contact with some industry pros. For a writer, it's like hanging out with rock stars all week. And, believe me, it only gets more surreal when you land your deal, and many of you will be doing that very soon methinks. So if you benefited from WOC this week, please make a donation to help them cover the huge hosting costs for the conference. Even if you donate $5, it's the cheapest conference you will ever go to, and, I dare say, one that puts you in close contact with more industry professionals than any other save for the big national conferences. And if you can't afford to, that's cool, too, because that's what this Con is all about - being accessible to everyone!
Ok, so I digress. The wrap-up.
Agent Tina Wexler of ICM gives a great example of what not to when writing dialogue, written in, well, dialogue.
Liesa Abrams takes on what writers should not talk about online when they are building their online presence. Here's a hint: editors and agents will check you out before they sign you, don't go around bashing the publishing industry or fellow authors. But there's a lot more food for thought there.
I love the advice on revising from Carrie Ryan. I also once suffered from laziness in terms of revising. Now I wouldn't dream of showing any one my first draft!
Amy Dominy gave us 10 traits of a writer. And I'm happy to report that yep, I can write total crap. Doing it right now (well, not this blog post - this is solid gold).
I absolutely agree that moments matter as Matt Myklusch argues. I don't think its necessary to rewrite each chapter until its perfect before you move on to the next, in fact I think it can be deadly for a novel, but we all work in different ways, and the heart of his sentiment rings true.
Ok, I'm still catching up on all the awesome that was WOC 2011, so that's all for me this year. What was your favorite thing from the whole conference? What do you want to see more of next year?
I've been so out of the loop with this conference but it's been all over the web, twitter, blogs. My agent did a chat there yesterday and I missed it. Sounds like some amazing writerly wisdom being portioned out by all. Thanks for the great write up about the goings on, and for the donation link!
ReplyDeleteOh, definitely check out the debut year vlog, Anita (link in my day 2 post). Lots of good info for debut authors!
ReplyDeleteIt. Was. So. Awesome.
ReplyDeleteI only got a query request, but you never know, I guess.
And I didn't get any criticism, so I can still query all of them (trying to stay positive...)
Thank you for all you did! It's so amazing when you authors lend a hand to help us unpubs on our way up this steep, steep mountain.