Now that I’m home from the Left
Coast Crime Conference that took place in Portland, I’ve had a chance to look
through my notes. Here are some tidbits for you.
One panelist stated that a
writing career is like a climbing wall. It’s not straight up. It’s up, over,
down, over, up, etc.
Since I have a non-fiction book
coming out soon about a World War II veteran, I appreciated a comment made: “Who
doesn’t love to learn about World War II.”
I liked this statement: “In
academia, the fights are so ferocious because the stakes are so small.”
As authors we’re always told to “show
don’t tell.” One panelist modified this to “tell the boring parts and show the
exciting parts.”
Another stated: “The key to being
a writer is a healthy dose of self-delusion.”
We often hear about developing a
strong voice. An important distinction was made on one panel that there are two
connotations for voice. One is to distinguish specific characters. The other is
the unique voice of the author.
One author received the following
feedback on a manuscript: Everything looked good except for the need to make the
protagonist more likeable, improve the mystery and tune up the writing.
Here are some of the people in the audience at the Meet the New Author Breakfast that I moderated:
It was an excellent conference and
I celebrated afterwards by going to Disneyland with my wife, son, daughter-in-law
and two grandkids.
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