I attended a Con in Louisville, Kentucky this past weekend. I learned a little, hung out with some fun folks, and connected with the usual suspects of Raconteur Press.
Learning:
There was a full schedule of panels. I stuck to the writing panels, because I do this thing and I’d like to get better at it. The best ones that I attended were by Dianne Mills and Devon Eriksen. Dianne had several over the course of the three days. In one panel, on The Art of Character, she encouraged writers to put a lot of thought into the past journey of those characters. As a pantser, this is a challenge for me. My characters tend to tell me who they are as we progress through the story. That’s fine for a first draft, I think. It would be worthwhile to build a psychological profile once the story has developed. I attended only one panel with Devon on perspective and tense. He’s a new author with one book out. He has put a great deal of thought, however, into the use of tense and viewpoints in writing. It will be interesting to see how his career unfolds.
Hung out with folks:
I hung out a lot with Richard Cartwright, Becky Jones, and Kortnee Bryant. It was a busy weekend, but I kept running into them and we shared dinner a couple of times.
The Usual Suspects:
I’ve written mostly for Raconteur Press. I’d met some of the crew before, but the crew has grown as the press has. It was great to put faces with names. Rac Press has been very ambitious and continues to be. I was also able to pitch an idea for their Pogue One anthology and the idea was well received, so I may devote some time to developing the concept. I thought it was a little outside the parameters, but I was encouraged to write it. Huzzah!
Tuvela Two-Step 