2012 Writers' Conference Resource Guide

If you think you’d like to attend a writer’s conference this year, but need a little guidance on finding the right one for your writing needs and budget, you might want to check out Shaw Guides.

It lists conferences in all fifty states as well as worldwide.

Here is a list of conferences in Idaho to get you started:

1. Granite Creek Ranch Fiction Workshop
Workshops, reading of western writing; cattle drives & trail rides on the ranch.
Ririe, ID

2. Idaho Writer's League Annual Conference
Speakers and workshops with emphasis on websites, marketing, and publishing.
Coeur d'Alene, ID

3. Lost Horse Writers' Conference
Workshops, readings, panel discussions, master classes & recreation. Classes offered in poetry, fiction, or nonfiction.
Sandpoint, ID

4. Murder In The Grove
Workshops & panels, Q&A, master class.
Boise, ID

5. Payette Lake Writers Conference
Friday: all-day fiction workshop (separate enrollment); Sat & Sun: presenters & workshops.
McCall, ID

6. River's Edge Retreats
Lectures, entertainment, group interaction, writing time.
St. Anthony, ID

7. Society of Children's Book Writers & Illustrators - Utah/So. Idaho Chapter
1-day workshop featuring lectures, writing exercises, discussion and critique.
Long Beach, CA : Boise, ID

8. Sun Valley Center for the Arts Writers Workshop
Memoir writing workshop
Hailey, ID

9. Sun Valley Writers' Conference & Workshop
Small group breakout sessions, panel discussions, readings, talks.
Sun Valley, ID

Left at the Hitching Post

By Bill Corbett

One of my favorite forms of entertainment as a kid during the 1940s was the Saturday matinee at the local movie theater. These matinees usually consisted of B Western movies. In order to add a bit of comedic drama, those films usually had a scene where either the bank robbers scurried out of the bank with their loot, or the posse mounted up to give chase, and in every case someone for various reasons was left behind at the hitching post scratching his head while the others raced away. In this age of modern technology, I’m the guy left at the hitching post scratching my head.

As they read more of this blog post, many will wonder why I make such a big deal out of all this. The fact is, I was born fifty years too early to grasp all this computer stuff. My three and a half year old grandson has to show me how to use his i-pod. I can be doing something that isn’t going right, and he takes it out of my hand and says, “Not that way, Pa Pa. You have to do it this way.”

"Oh,” I say, which brings me to the point of this blog. I’m a computer illiterate. If it’s possible to make an i-pod crash, I can do it. My computer IQ is somewhere between 25 and 50. Hell, I received a Kindle reader for Christmas, and it took me until last week to figure out how to charge the battery!

I have been tuning into a number of teleseminars this winter focusing on Internet marketing, and I have to say the whole concept boggles my mind. “You need to be on Twitter,” they say, “Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest,” they say. “Know about RSS feeds, blogging, get Google alerts, have a social media, campaign,” they say, in order to draw people to your website. I don’t even know what a tenth of those things they talk about are, let alone find the time to use them. Geesh!

Then they go on to say you need to have some sort of gimmick to pique your customers’ interest and draw them to your website. “Throw in a gift or something if they purchase your book,” they say. As I read or listen to all this my mind immediately goes on tilt. And the worst of it is, it doesn’t matter whether you self-publish or go with a trade publisher; you are still expected to do all this. E-publishing is taking over the publishing world, and this is the new way of marketing our books, or any other wares for that matter. “The ‘old fashioned’ bookstore signings are a thing of the past,” they say. “The Internet is where it’s at.”

So as I stand here at the hitching post scratching my head, I come to the conclusion there is only one solution for a computer imbecile such as me; either I enlist the services of grandson Aidan to show me around the Internet, or I hire a professional marketer. Alas…woe is me.

Industry Tidbits

From Linda S:

With the tremendous success of ebooks and the closure of many bookstores around the country, everyone in the publishing industry has had some new challenges to face. For those of us who have been in the industry for twenty or thirty years, the changes might be harder to get our minds around. Things simply aren't the way they used to be, from submitting your work, to selling it, to marketing it. It's a whole new way of doing business and things are changing so rapidly it can be rather daunting for those of us used to doing things the old way. But there's a lot of information out there if you can find the time to weed through it. Here's an article and a site that has a lot of good information and might be of interest to both new and seasoned writers. "Five Big Publishing Stories of 2011" at Digital World.

From Carol:

In Sky Magazine for January, there was a short piece on self-publishing. According to “By the Numbers: Self Publishing,” $1500 is the average cost for an author to self-publish hardcover, soft cover, Kindle and Nook versions of a book. The cost of most self-published e-books is between 99 cents and $2.99. One young adult sci-fi writer earned $2 million from self-publishing before signing a contract with a major publishing house. At one time, three self-published books appeared simultaneously on the New York Times top 35 best selling fiction titles. Lulu.com has published 1.1 million authors. Self-publishing companies used to offer 25% of profits to their authors. That figure has risen to 70%.

New Year's Resolutions and Goals

A few members of our group laid out some resolutions and goals for the upcoming year. We thought we'd post them here to encourage ourselves to complete them, and perhaps encourage other writers to make up their own set. It always helps to have a deadline, even if it's self-imposed. At the end of the year, we'll revisit this post and see if we accomplished what we set out to do. Ought to be fun!

Linda Tirrell

Finish my "book!" Sigh! Let go of the fear of my book not being good enough--let go of feeling it needs to be perfect! I did give the latest revision to Mae's husband (the story is about Mae). He read it and gave it back with recommendations for adding more! Started doing some research on the items he recommended (i.e., learning about things like the Red Sox and the Texas Towers!)

Bill Corbett

My goals right now are to work on getting my screenplay, Buddy's Misadventures, to a marketable state, and getting my novel, Shadow Revolution, published. The screenplay needs a bit more work on character development, and I'm working on a final edit and proof read for the novel. I also have another novel I'm going to pull off the shelf, dust off, rewrite, and polish.

Karen Finnigan

My short-term goal is to finish my novel, Return to Cloudberry, so I can get queries out to agents. The story is done, but I have two sets of reader comments to address. My long-term goal is to find an agent who handles women's fiction and who believes in my story enough to sell it. I think it's enough for my year, given all else that's going on. I will try to start something new, but I’m not going to commit to that yet.

Linda Sandifer

I want to get a rough draft of my new novel by early summer and have a final draft by the end of the year, ready to start submitting to agents. But this idea keeps growing, so I don't know where it’ll take me. I would also like to get a couple of my older western romances into eBook format for Kindle and Nook. My long-term goal, which I know I won’t meet this year, is to have all my books available as eBooks.

Richard Rice

Here are my goals, in order of priority:

1. Find a publisher for at least one of my two novels, Incendiary and Seeking Gemini
2. Find a place for my two short stories, “Sophie's Gift” and “Magpie”
3. Finish my novel, Star Eaters

My resolutions to make this happen are:

1. Spend some time every day on writing, editing or marketing.
2. Smarten up on social networking

Too much? We'll find out in a year when we open the time capsule.

Sherry Roseberry

I'll start out my resolutions/goals by vowing NOT to go on a diet or get so wrapped up in exercises that I fall short. (Maybe taking it from this angle something will happen.) I will get back to blocking out time for writing and/or research five days a week. I will finish the first book in the series I am starting and proposals on two more for a three-book contract. Then I will search for an agent. While I'm doing that I'll start my second book. With my fellow BSers in my corner how can I go wrong?

Carol Stilz

My goals at this time are short: First, I intend to finish editing my son-in-law's book on sportscasting by April 3. Second, by year's end I intend to have a contract for my first full-length novel.

Sandra Lord

My goal for 2012 is to finish Winds of Fate and get it to an agent on publisher. Then have a rough draft of my second novel completed. I really hate to make resolutions because it seems I always break them. Maybe this time will be different.

Sue Anne Hodge

My goal is to get both of my "Never" novels done and sent off to the first agent who wanted to see the two finished. If he rejects it, then I will start sending to others I have in my list.

We Live In a Hyper World

By Bill Corbett

Ah … the times, they do change. Ever since computers and the internet came into being, the world seems to be operating at warp speed. We watch TV commercials showing pickup trucks bouncing over rough terrain, splashing through mud puddles at fifty or sixty miles per hour. We see fine luxury cars racing across the salt flats at top speed, only to watch them end their race with a spinning skid stop (who in his right mind would treat a nice care like that). Hardly do we see a movie produced within the last fifteen years that isn’t rife with high-speed action including car chases, rollovers, and cars and people blown off the planet in some fiery explosion. Geeesh!

In the old days, we were perfectly content to spend a leisurely three days on the train to cross the continent. Now we put ourselves through all kinds of humiliation and stress to fly the same distance in three hours. We used to cross the ocean (with a modicum of luxury) on a great ocean liner in eight days. Now we put ourselves through all manner of emotional and physical stress to cover the same distance in eight hours.

This is supposed to be a writer’s blog, so what does all this have to do with writing? Well, I’ll tell you. This same hyper-intensity is showing up of late in the writing, publishing, and editing fields. We meet with an agent or editor and we’re told we have ten seconds to get their attention. They tell us to describe our book in twenty words or less. I had an agent tell me that once, and I was so incensed, I told him since he made such a ludicrous request, I would give him a ludicrous answer. I said to him, “It’s a damn good story.” I then told him I thought he probably didn’t have the time to represent me, anyway, and I ended the conversation.

It’s interesting to note how the accepted writing styles have changed over the last forty or fifty years or so. In the old days, the "ly" words (adverbs) and the "ing" words were used quite extensively, as were adjectives, passive verbs and passive language. I recently tuned into a marketing teleseminar where an editor was discussing all the no-nos that bug editors today. Those I just mentioned are at the top of their list. As a result we have hyper writing and hyper editing with short, choppy, direct, no-nonsense “get directly to the point” sentences. Very few, if any, eloquently flowing compound complex sentences with a few adverbs and adjectives thrown in are acceptable, and only a minimal number, if any, with passive language are acceptable.

I recently picked up a couple of Nancy Drew stories from my daughter’s library the other day and began to peruse them. They were handed down from her mother, so some of them had copyrights back to 1936. Following are a few excerpts to remind us of what was acceptable writing in those days. If Carolyn King, or her ghost writers, were to write in her original style today, it’s questionable whether she would be published. Here are a few examples of her writing which I suspect is indicative of the style of most writers of that era:

--Nancy Drew began pulling off her garden glove.
--What was that? Nancy questioned eagerly, racing noisily on tiptoe out of the room.
--Nancy laughed softly.
--Nancy’s heart suddenly gave a leap.

King’s books are rife with such adverbs and passive language phrases. Such extensive usage of the “ly” words and passive phrases today would cause editors acute baldness, and if they happen to be tee-totalers, well … who knows?

Yes, the times have changed. Not that I agree, but like it or not, I guess we have to change with them, but I kinda like the Nancy Drew stories and the adverbs and passive language. They’re fun reading.

Bill lives in Tucson, Arizona. He is a two-time Associated Press award-winning columnist and writes fiction under the name Will Edwinson. His national award-winning book, Buddy…His Trials and Treasures, is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, or by asking for it at your favorite bookstore. Check his web site and blog at www.willedwinson.com. Bill also writes free-lance for IDAHO magazine.

You Don’t Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression

By Linda Sandifer

Most agents and writers have come to prefer email submissions to snail mail. It is decidedly easier for all parties and saves the writer a lot of money in postage. As a matter of fact, the loss of all those query letters, partials, and bulky manuscripts, along with return postage, could very well be what is causing the U. S. Postal Service’s financial demise.

Agents really like email queries because they can easily hit the “delete” button if they aren’t interested. And, you, the writer can easily choose 100 agents and send your query out to all of them simultaneously. Right?

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

It’s acceptable to send out multiple query letters. After all, if you sent out one at time, you might not live long enough to get through your list unless you’re twenty when you start querying. Granted, email does make it so you only have to wait weeks, rather than months, for a response, but it’s still not a good idea to get overzealous. I personally prefer to choose around five agents at a time and wait to see what sort of response I get. If it’s positive and they want to see more, I can assume my query letter piqued their interest. If I don’t get a response, or get all negative responses, then I realize I might need to rework the query letter. The same philosophy goes for a partial, and so on to the request of a full manuscript.

The bottom line is you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression, so don’t exhaust all the agents on your list in one fell swoop. You want to leave your options open to rework your query, your partial, or your manuscript if each phase of submission isn’t garnering the interest to take it to the next level.

Born and raised in Idaho, Linda is the award-winning author of thirteen western novels, including her most recent, The Last Rodeo. She was named Idaho Writer of the Year for her first book, Tyler's Woman, and recently received the Laura Award from Women Writing the West for her short story, "The Ranch." You can see all of her books on her website: www.linda-sandifer.com

Writing and Golf

By Richard Rice

Sometime, not too long ago, I set two goals to guide me through the next years of my life. Number one, I want to publish a novel. Secondly, I want to shoot my age at golf.

Simple goals, their achievement easily verified. Now I’m on record. The world can watch to see how I do. How difficult are these goals, and how am I doing?

Specifics I’ve set for the published novel is that it cannot be a limited, self-published work, but a genuine, New York book, purchased by thousands of anxious readers who will become the beginnings of my fan club. The odds against this happening are quite high. Statistics abound, suggesting that agents receive tens of thousands of author queries each year and only a small fraction actually lead to published novels. I believe it. I have hundreds of rejections, probably enough to paper my garret. Undaunted by such odds, I fearlessly plunge ahead with my writing and queries.

I have recently completed my third novel, Incendiary, and have begun the tortuous journey toward its publication. I’m pleased to say, things are going well. I have already received my first rejection! I won’t bore you with a long description of the story, but just in case you’re interested, here is a short excerpt from Chapter 1:

Mohammad felt a light pressure on his shoulder and a tingling sensation in his throat. Surprised, he raised his hands to his neck and looked down, discovering a crimson stain spreading across his chest. He tried to shout, but no sound came from his mouth. Dark spots appeared before his eyes and a roaring filled his ears. A dizzy feeling came over him, deepening as he sank to his knees, still not understanding what had happened. Strong hands took a grip on an arm and belt and he felt his body being propelled toward the precipice. He saw the river below growing closer and sensed a cool rush of air on his face. He wondered if he could be flying.

The golf goal is also a long shot. Shooting your age at golf is a rare accomplishment, limited to only a few percent of all golfers. Still, I persist, a familiar figure hacking away at the local courses, and occasionally on a road trip to some exotic links in, say, Utah. How close am I to reaching my goal? Consider the numbers. A normal golf course par is 72. Pro golfers usually shoot about this or a little less. My typical score is considerably higher. For example, this last weekend, if I was 89, I would have shot my age. But, I have a long way to go before I’m 89. Can I hold on to my present level for another 18 years? Or improve enough to intercept my age somewhere along the way?

To increase my odds of shooting my age someday, I take lessons, try new equipment, fiddle with my golf swing, practice often and note golf tips in various magazines or on the Golf Channel. Are these things working? So far not enough. But, as in writing the Great American Novel, one must persist, continue to learn, and never give up.

So, I persist. In writing as in golf.

Richard grew up in Southern California and received his BS and MS degrees in Engineering from the University of California at Berkeley. In an exciting three-decade technical career, he was involved in NASA’s space program and in nuclear energy and novel energy production research for the Energy Department. He traveled extensively throughout North America, Europe and Asia, presenting the results of his work and collaborating with other research institutions. Richard began writing as a teenager, covering high school sports for the local newspaper. He continued writing throughout his career, producing a number of technical papers, articles and reports. He recently decided to end his engineering career and write full time. Since then, he has produced three novels. He has also written several short stories, three of which were accepted by the Idaho Magazine. His third short story was named as a winner in the Idaho Magazine 2010 fiction contest. Richard lives with his family on the Snake River in Southeastern Idaho.