Make the Most Out of Conferences

Posted on By csoundar

Playing catch-up is okay when you are five. But if you are a serious writer and spent a lot of money traveling to a conference or attending a workshop, you should be prepared to take advantage of the events and not play catch-up with the speakers.

Most conferences invite experienced writers and editors for the events. These speakers specialise in a particular genre or are experts in a specific area. Their keynote speeches and lectures would focus on pre-arranged topics.

If you go unprepared for these conferences, you will realize that many of the terminologies are new to you and also that the speakers do not have the time to clarify doubts on fundamental topics.

Some of you might think – “Hey, that’s why I go to a conference. I want my fundamental questions answered.” Why waste the money and take the effort to go to a conference when you can find all the fundamental details in most books and websites. From conferences and workshops, you should strive to learn what the books, magazines and websites cannot teach you.

Let’s assume that you have already done the research and decided on the appropriate conference. You have paid the money and also made travel plans.

What’s the next step? You need to prepare.

Read about the speakers.

If they are writers or editors, read at least two of their books. Based on your reading, choose your workshops. You cannot decide which writer will best suit your work unless you read their work. Reading a speaker’s books also gives you the most promising opening lines in informal conversations. Knowing the work of the editor or the writer will be useful when you are preparing questions for the speaker.

Some speakers might not be good orators. But their writing might be exceptionally brilliant. You will not appreciate their workshops if you have not read their books before.

Plan your schedule.

 

Whether the conference is happening in your city or elsewhere, don’t plan other social activities during the conference days. If you have family and friends (who are not writers) in the city you are visiting, plan activities before or after the conference days, so that you can spend the conference time working on your conference notes, manuscripts and the like.

If you are traveling to another city or country for the conference, keep a day or two for tourism; don’t squeeze it into your conference days. You don’t want to have a hangover or tired feet and doze off during lectures.

Read up the basics.

If you have done your homework and learnt the basics from books and websites, you will be able to ask questions that have emerged in your mind and are not answered by these books. Also you will avoid wasting the time of speakers (not to mention other attendees) and also have more time to ask questions that are better answered by your speaker.

Learn the Business Basics

Find out what query letters are, what are submissions and how do you submit your work to a publisher or a magazine. You can also find out about market guides, industry practices and about the all-prevailing SASE (US), SAE (UK)

Learn the Market

If you want to write mysteries, read as many mystery books you can. Find out which publisher is interested in mystery titles. You can do that by checking the names of publishers in the books you read. Also you can check the market guides to find out who is publishing what.

By doing this, you gain an overview on the publishers and you can ask specific questions about these publishers during your lectures Q&A session or workshops. If you didn’t even know who is publishing the kind of stories you write (or want to write), you cannot get insider info in conferences.

Prepare for Publicity

Also, if you are already published, please carry a copy of all the books you have written and copies of published magazine articles. This will prove very useful when sharing your work with other attendees and speakers.

The difficult part is done. Now let’s look at what you should do during the conference.

DSCF0958

a)           Arrive early (at least 15-20 minutes). Talk to other participants and speakers who have arrived early. If you are talking to another participant or a speaker, discuss their books, the process of writing and selling it and also about their publishers.

b)           While attending lectures and workshops, take notes. Don’t rely on your memory.

c)           Distribute your business cards and collect cards from others during breaks and chitchats.

d)           Seek out speakers during the break and introduce yourself. Start conversations citing their books. Make general fun conversations too. Let them understand that you are not interested in them just as a speaker but also as a fellow-writer. But don’t hound them while they are at lunch or in the toilet. That’s just not professional.

Finally the frenzy is over. The conference is over or at least the first day is over. Is your work over? Not at all.

a)      At the end of every day, type up (if you are carrying your laptop) or write down your notes, your learning and your reflections. Memories fade and learning will be lost. Such notes are useful for future workshops and also for discussing the conference with your writers group or family.

b)      After the end of a day’s event, hang around; speak to organizers or other writers. If there is a group dinner or outing arranged, don’t make excuses and watch cable TV in your hotel room. Go out and enjoy being with other writers. How often do you get to spend time with people who understand terms like SASE, rejections, revisions, not suitable for our present needs etc.

c)      After the entire event is over, give yourself a day or two of rest. Then start the follow-ups. List the names of editors who were interested in your work. Check out publishing houses that others recommended. Send Thank-You emails to writers and speakers you interacted with.

d)      If you have the email addresses of writers and editors, maintain contact. You’ve to balance this with NOT stalking. Keep them updated about your progress, any new articles published, if they expressed interest in your work.  Foster the relationship you created in the conference.

Conferences are expensive. Unless each participant prepares ahead it is not easy to get substantial benefits. Make your money work harder at conferences and you will learn more than what they taught.

Here are some conferences you can attend

SCBWI’s annual conferences in New York City and L.A – visit www.scbwi.org

Highlights for Children run retreats and other focussed workshops. Find out more at www.highlightsfoundation.org

Society of Authors in the UK run annual conferences too. And especially the CWIG gathering for children’s writers. Find out more at http://www.societyofauthors.org/

Winchester University runs annual conferences for writers. Find out at http://www.writersconference.co.uk/

Lately My Muse…

Posted on By csoundar

muse

I couldn’t get my muse to work.

I fed it with a feast.

It went to sleep.

I roused it with a bark.

It went out for a walk.

 

I insulted it with TV.

I tempted it with ice-cream.

I starved it for a while.

And even locked it in the loo.

 

Whatever I did,

I couldn’t get my muse to work.

 

I thought of blanks.

Just plain white blanks.

I never once tried,

To rouse the muse.

 

And then it happened.

It really happened.

My muse got up quickly

And painted my white.

 

A touch of green and

A touch of blue

A touch that was

The perfect hue.

 

Aha! I said, now I know.

The muse is just a child.

The perfect way is

Not to scare it away.

Going Wild During National Stationery Week

Posted on By csoundar

Never knew people celebrated stationery with “National Stationery Week”! Growing up as a compulsive reader and a scribbler, stationery was fascinating even when I was 3 or 4. My parents recall that when they take me to the shops, the only thing I’d ever ask for was a pencil or a pen. Also according to my grandma (bless her, she told me innumerable stories), as a toddler, my favourite pastime was “Writing ABC”. I never asked for toys and stuff as a toddler.

Wherever I travel, I try and find the stationery shop in that city and look at what innovations they have – like newly shaped post-its, notebooks on keyrings, different types of notebooks – shapes, sizes, thick lines, thin lines – the myriad of stationery.

And then I find out there is a National Stationery Week in the UK. How cool is that? Here are what I’ve come up with that I should try:

  • Buy a new notebook
  • Open and write something on a notebook that has been waiting for a long time.
  • Write a few pages by long hand and decorate with color pencils and crayons
  • Send a post-card to someone for no reason

Hmm, can I get more creative than that?

How about I create the Notebook Fairy? She controls the movements of notebooks, she manages the lines on the notebooks, she decides how big the margins should be? She decides whether a notebook has to be or stitched. A Notebook Fairy to whom you can pray for the perfect notebook that never challenges you with a blank page. A notebook where every word you write is perfect!

And then notebook fairy has an army of workers – the eraser fairy and the crayon elves.  The notebook fairy has an arch-enemy – the badly-spelling-text-message devil. He hates writing anything down. He controls his world in badly formed text messages that spell cud for could and LOL for laughing.

 

Before I get carried away and write an entire novel from these characters (they are my characters, invented on the fly, as I am writing this blog), I’ll let you celebrate your stationery week with pens, pencils, notebooks, sharpeners, erasers and paper-clips

Writing vs Life

Posted on By csoundar

I have just moved to a new role in a new department at my day-job. I went from “I know everything at work” to “I know nothing”. Someone asked me at work whether that means writing will take a backseat until I come to grips with my  new job?

Writing is the driver of my life. It can’t sit in the backseat. Duh!

I know my day job pays my bills and more. It pays my mortgage, sends me on exotic travels, allows me to buy gadgets, magazines, books and printer paper and a fancy Mac and food. It allows me to write and hone my craft and wait for my agent over many years. It allows me to be patient.

But it has turned from a career and a calling to a job. I do it well and never treat it any less serious. I work hard, I give it my full attention while I’m there. I have emergencies at my job and there are days when I have to go early or stay late. I never refuse. I give it my 100%.

However, writing is more like breathing, or having the first morning coffee. I have to write, otherwise I do get annoyed, a bit clumsy as if my balance has been messed with. I do miss a few days. Sometimes after I’ve finished a big project, I take time off not writing. But after 2-3 days of not writing, something happens in my brain. I feel like words are having an angry fight in my head, characters are jostling for attention.

I do acknowledge that I can’t make a living out of writing, yet. I’ve also become accustomed to the luxury of having a city job and the benefits it provides. So I don’t put my job at risk. I find the time to write by making full use of it. I write an hour or two before I get into work. Some weeks I could start my day at 5 in the morning writing until 7. Some weeks I write just an hour in the morning. I write most weekends – all mornings if possible.

I’m rubbish at night. I can’t write or do anything useful. My brain gets tired. So I watch TV, play freecell on my laptop, do some chores if I can get  up from the couch. Sometimes I write -but mostly I catch up on facebook and emails and so many other things.

I used to track my writing time a few years ago. Nowadays I don’t have to do that. I know when I am being laid back and not writing. My mind knows, my notebook knows. I always succumb to the temptation after playing hooky for a day or two.

Life is always going to interfere with what I want to do. Break-ups, family emergencies, holidays, new job, illness – something or the other would come to threaten my affair with writing. But now I’ve come to work around life. I know when it feels right to write my picture book or my chapter book. I know when I want to scribble in a notebook or use my Mac. I know when I am just going to do some writing exercises or attempt a new character sketch. The muse peeps in with a new recipe each day and I try and cook the best I can with that recipe.

Do you write amidst life? Of course you do. Tell me all about it here.

Tributes Along the Way

Posted on By csoundar

I recently wrote here, http://www.chitrasoundar.com/due-to-be-released/, about how the character names for two of my picture books were chosen. Now that I have a baby nephew, I try and see if I can use his name for the next book – of course something that he might be interested in reading when he grows up.

The other thing I keep wondering and keep doodling about is dedication. There are some books where my friend has helped me so much to write, to revise or just to listen to me winge about how about it is going. So those books if and when published would need to be dedicated to him.
But I also want to dedicate in such a way that he will not cringe or ask for a share in the copyright. LOL.

Just to digress, I am very careful about collaboration. If a friend is helping a lot to revise, I always ask him whether he wants a credit or a fee or a share if the book ever gets published. So I know where they stand. I‘d rather give due credit. However most often I know that people who critique love to help me write and don’t want to write themselves. They are not writers. They want to be enablers to writers in their own small way.

I work with a lot of dads in my day-job. And they are always willing to read my material to their kids and give me feedback. The kids I am told are enthusiastic because Dad knows the author. I hope when these books ever get published, I will remember the dads and the kids that might have grown up in a simple thankful gesture – like inviting them to a launch party.

But dedications are hard to write – at least for me. I have to give the right person credit for the right thing. For example, my Dad has always been proud of my writing even when I was writing in a notebook that no one other than the family had seen. I also want to credit inspiration, support, the trust they placed in me that I am not mad, when I locked myself in a room to write.

So do you use people you know as character names? How do you choose whom to dedicate the book to? How do you choose the words to dedicate?
Share your thoughts in the comment section here.