My Humble Musings post-World Fantasy Con

I know it's been around 3 weeks since I went to World Fantasy Con in Brighton, but I'm still benefiting from its effects.
I'm not going to give you a run down of the Con itself, not the sessions I attended; my friend Selina has done an amazing job chronicling most of our adventures already.
I also won't comment here about the organisation of the event; this was my first big convention and so it's a shame to read reports about all the negative aspects of the event.
What I will share with you is what I learned from attending the event, one of the main inspirations to my sudden burst of writing drive.

1. Most people are lovely.

I think I can truthfully say that every person I spoke to was wonderfully welcoming and friendly to me. I went with the preconception that it might be a bit cliquey, especially as I'm new, but people were happy to engage in conversation, and even the famous authors I met were really generous with their time. I know this experience was not shared by all who attended the Con, and so I count myself lucky that I was surrounded by amazing people and didn't encounter and of the dross.

2.  No one knows shit about upcoming literary "trends"

This is something Neil Gaiman talked explicitly about at the World Fantasy Awards ceremony, but the theme was visible throughout the event. With medias changing and the "word of mouth" phenomenon growing (aided by the internet), no one can really predict what's going to take off in the next few years or even in what format or media it will appear. This hit home for me as I was reminded of about 4 years ago when I was told by an agent quite bluntly that girls don't read dystopian fiction and that no one would buy my book because there was no market for it, so why not try my hand at Steampunk instead?  Fast forward, post-The Hunger Games, and "dystopian SF" is the latest, hottest genre in the YA category. Don't get me wrong, in no way am I saying my novel would have been the next Hunger Games, but it did make me think: actually, people can be wrong, and that leads me into my next point...

3. Write what you love and write it well

This is advice I'd read or heard before, but after realisation number 2 above, it became much more apparent to me that now there is more of a free market, you should spend your time writing those stories that you love and with all the new publishing options out there, if it's good enough it will find its market. Be the trailblazer! Buck the trend! Create good art! That is the only way to combine creativity and personal happiness. Do what you love, and hopefully it should resonate with others who will love it too.

I was surprised by how happy I was at the convention - hungover, tired, yes, but happy - and rejoining the real world was a jolt. Attending the convention has strengthened my resolve from "wannabe" to "will be". I will finish Banshee and seek publication. It will be accepted and published and read. I will write a sequel, and a standalone, and another, and I will go to more conventions where I hope they will continue to inspire me and thousands of other "will be"s, way past the point where we become "I am"s.

Catch-Up

This post may be a long one. Don't say I didn't warn you. You wait months for something interesting to report, and then it all happens at once. I'm going to report things in reverse chronological order, just for fun.

The Monastery OK. So here are a few photos of the lovely abbey.

It was so peaceful, even with a boarding school in the grounds. The monks wore black robes, and were perfectly lovely and polite, if scarce. Apparently there were only 30 there. I had supper with the headmaster (a monk) on Sunday evening, and had cajun chicken and tequila-laced salmon, drank wine and elderflower cordial before retiring to my room at 9:30. It was a good event, the Higher Education bit that I was there for, and a pretty unique experience I suppose. Yorkshire is lovely - I think I may have to have a special day trip to explore properly another time.

The Writing Industries Conference I had a very good day, with the quality what I've grown to expect from a Literature Network/Writing East Midlands event. The programme was just about perfect, and they made up for the fact that attendees couldn't attend everything I wanted to by recording each session as a podcast. There wasn't too much waiting around for sessions to start, but similarly it didn't feel rushed. The theme was about New Media, and the need for writers to diversify to become successful. My agent one to one went very well, but probably not for the reasons you might think. He tore my work to shreds, pointed out the gaping holes that I have been in denial about, and made the most liberating suggestion of my life (in regards to Inter Vivos anyway!). I hate it when people give feedback and they're afraid to hurt your feelings, so they use stock phrases and platitudes, and this guy did no such thing. I know some people couldn't have sat there taking it without crying or arguing or something, but I thought it was great. Because it means that I should not waste anymore time on a project that is fundamentally flawed (no matter how hard I try to resolve those flaws) and that I should work on something else.

The day after my meeting, it did hit me that I wasn't as far ahead as I had thought, but - well - nevermind! Back to the drawing board. I'm going to salvage what I can from Inter Vivos, perhaps take a few characters that I like and play with them a little, and treat Inter Vivos like you do your first ever boyfriend - you look back fondly but think, what was I thinking?

So what does that mean now?

Well, I'm going to stick to Fantasy, which is where I'm more comfortable, and I know a little bit more about. I'm going to have a think about what it is I want to write, what I like to read, and go from there. I may revisit the Banshee story, because I think that has some potential, although the plot still isn't clear to me. I'm going to write more short stories and practice the "craft". And I'm going to be more honest with myself. I knew IV wasn't working - I couldn't get my head around the core science in the book, and no amount of characterisation would fix that. There was a reason I hadn't been able to finish it for NaNoWriMo, why I'd been working on it for 4 years with little success, but I'd blinkered myself to it. Everything negative that the agent said, I knew already but had been denying it to myself.

So all in all, the Writing Conference was extremely valuable. Now I just have to work out what to do next.

A Post About Work...Mainly

Sigh. Feeling very tired today after my one-day weekend. Spent most of Sunday lying on the sofa in sort of a swoon-like position, trying to see the telly past my gigantic Valentine's bouquet. Not that I was really watching the telly as tuning out from the rest of the world for a while. I did watch Adventureland though, that was good.
Work is still busy, as I'm organising events for between 500-1000 people twice a week until March, plus in a couple of weeks time I get to go and stay at a monastery, which I'm both petrified and excited about. What if the room I'm staying in is haunted by dead monks? Dead chanting monks? Dead chanting monks with no feet or faces? *shudder*
Because work has been difficult, my writing has had to take a bit of a back-burner, but tonight I start editing again. It is taking forever. But I'm stubborn, so I'll keep chugging away. Come on chapter five!
I found out at the weekend that I've got an agent one-to-one at the Writing Industries Conference, which is cool. I'm doing my research and planning, and have come up with questions I'd like to ask, so that's good. What would you ask, if you had 15 mins with a literary agent?

To Sci-Fi or Not to Sci-Fi

Saturday was spent productively at the Writing Industries Conference in Loughborough. It's all a little bit intimidating thinking about marketing my book and the long slog I will have once I've finished the damn thing to actually get a book deal (if that ever happens), but I'll worry about all that once the writing's finished.

The agent was a lovely bloke who said he liked my writing, and recommended some Sci-Fi authors for me to read. Yes, dear readers, unbeknownst to me, my story is of the sci-fi genre. "But surely you knew what you were writing?" you may ask. Well, not really. I just wrote the story that came into my head, without really thinking of genres as such. I mean, there are lots of authors I admire, most of which are of the sci-fi/fantasy persuasion, but I'm a bit wary about launching myself into this genre. Why? Well, firstly, because it seems a little bit constrictive to be 'labelled' as one thing. What if Inter Vivos is my only sci-fi book, and everything else I write hereafter is erotica, or western romance, or something? What if sci-fi doesn't sell? Second on my list of doubts is that I don't really know of any female sci-fi writers (or any who would care to admit it). So perhaps the market is ripe for a great female sci-fi writer, or perhaps the market isn't ready at all. Thirdly, I don't really know anything about science, let alone science fiction. As I mentioned, the agent was really nice and recommended some sci-fi for me to read, with the promise to send me names of more authors, so at least this last point is something I can do something about.

I think now that playwriting is not so restrictive as book publishing. I mean, you can write plays about anything, without people expecting your next one to be exactly the same (but different) as your last (think Dan Brown as an example). But if Inter Vivos does get published, then it probably means I will have to write Munitionettes as a play or TV drama instead (not necessarily a bad idea).

So yes, the conference gave me lots of food for thought. Was nice to meet people and hobnob and all of that, and learn more about the 'writing for a living' side of writing and how to go about making that happen. Good, but daunting. Will get the book finished first though, and try to push all of this to the back of my mind until then. (I feel like Scarlett O'Hara with her 'I'll think about that tomorrow' attitude).

Agents

Just a quick post to say that I've got a one-to-one session with an agent at the Writing Industries Conference, based on the first three chapters of Inter Vivos. All very exciting. Have to go and do some research now.

New Year, New Job

Happy New Year to you all! I am now blogging from my new office, though I don't yet have a desk or my own PC... oh well! Hopefully by next week it will all be sorted.

Just a quick update really. I didn't do as much (ie any) writing as I had intended over the holiday period, and instead got depressed by how fat I've become, and worked on my letter to apply for a one-to-one with an agent at the Writing Industries Conference I'm attending.

And that's about all I've been doing, creative-wise, over the past two weeks. Time to put away the tinsel and get back to work, I think!