On the air at Colorado Gold

A great first day at the Colorado Gold Writers Conference in Denver. I love doing writers conferences, which are multi-genre,rather than fantasy/sf specific, and intensely educational in nature. It's a change of pace from sf/fantasy conventions, which are networking, celebratory, and lighter weight. So how did the day unfold?


Breakfast with writer friends.
Sat in the lobby watching people as they arrived, excited, nervous, curious. Three hundred writers in one place means an explosion of words. Awesome.

My first workshop - Communicating Character. A great audience, but, as usual, I talked too much and ran out of time. Thus I had to rush the end and skip some cool examples and exercises. I do dry runs, but they are...dry. I should always double the time allowance!

Listened to the incomparable Connie Willis talk about Mushy Middles - and realized I DID a lot of the things she suggested. Her delivery is so delightful and her examples so good and so varied and so clear, I just wanted to scoop it all up to savor later. Hmm, I COULD buy the CD...

A strawberry margerita in the bar while enjoying the company of some of my critique partner/friends and the incomparable Connie.

Hosted a table of aspiring fantasy and sf writers along with Roc sf writer, Laura Reeve. The food was good and the company enjoyable, though it is impossible to talk with the people across the table, as it is just TOO noisy with 300 verbal people in the same room.

Listened to RMFW Writer of the Year (and conference chair) Pam Nowak talk about her poignant and inspiring story of learning to write.

Book sale - talked to readers - because writers are ALL readers - and signed books for a couple of hours, before retiring to a quite conversation group.

And then a dash up to the roaring hospitality suite to talk more (not quietly) and get silly before crashing.

I love this job!