LTUE 2014 Schedule

I'm very happy to be able to attend LTUE again this year. This is the first writing conference I ever attended, and it still feels like going home. I'm looking forward to seeing some of you there!

Here's my classes and panels for this year:

Thursday, February 13th

2:00pm -- Narrative Drive: Techniques for building momentum in your story that will never fizzle out.

5:00pm -- Writing, Literacy, and Culture: A panel with Orson Scott Card, Laryssa Waldron, Johnny Worthen, Ami Chopine, and Clint Johnson.

Friday, February 14th

11:00am -- Short Stories in a Nutshell: how short stories are different than novels, how to write them, and where to sell them.

1:00 pm --  Selling Your Short Story: How to find a publisher (or agent) for your short story and how to sell them your masterpiece. A panel with Brad R. Torgersen, Emily Martha Sorensen, Eric James Stone, Suzanne Vincent, and Jaclyn M. Hawkes.

Saturday, February 15th

3:00 -- Wrapping Things Up: The hero is victorious and the villain's evil plan lies in ruins...now what? A panel with Bree Despain, Janci Patterson, Michael Young, Chad Morris, and Brandon Sanderson.

6:00 -- Creating Subplots: How to keep readers engaged with subplot while you keep your overall story flowing perfectly. A panel with David Farland, Jaclyn M. Hawkes, and Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury. 



 

The Writer's Bill of Rights

This is brilliant. There's a printable version here, and it can be freely distributed with attribution. So go and share!

THE WRITER’S BILL OF RIGHTS

by Robert Dawson

2013

* * *

You are allowed not to be the greatest writer in the world.

You are allowed not to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Pulitzer, or even that flash contest in your local newspaper

You are allowed to have a day job at which you spend more time than at writing, and that you may be unwilling or unable to give up.

You are allowed to have a family who need and deserve large quantities of your time.

You are allowed to write stories that are not as good as the best thing you ever wrote.

You are allowed to have dry spells. For as long as it takes.

You are allowed to sell stories to $10 markets. As Leonard Cohen puts it:

“I took my diamond to a pawnshop / But that don’t make it junk.”

You are allowed to have a lifestyle that won’t let you get to national workshops, or even your two-bit local convention.

You are allowed to have stories that haven’t sold at all yet—and may never sell.

You are allowed to not be [insert name here].

And you will still be a writer.

And that’s good.

Because otherwise there would be damned few of us left.

Looking Back and Looking Forward

January tends to make me contemplative.

In the past year, a lot of good things have happened. Drift was officially announced in Publisher's Weekly. I qualified to join SFWA, I had two short stories and a novelette published, and three more stories accepted. I was able to go to LTUE, perhaps my favorite conference, and meet with much of my writing group in person. I wrote the first draft of a Middle Grade SF novel, which was an adventure. I'd never written Middle Grade or novel-length SF before. Oh. And I moved to a new state and had a baby.

It's been a really busy year -- in a good way.

And as for 2014? Drift will be released. I'll have at least three short stories coming out, and I'm planning on making it to LTUE again. I've got more novels I want to draft, and some that I should revise (like that SF novel). I'm also going to be part of Novelocity, a blog where authors with novels coming out in 2014 talk about some of their favorite books. The first post -- our introductions -- is up!