Incredible day. Obviously I’ve been on a roll since October–no, much earlier than that I admit. Imagination, dreams, confidence, creativity, and hopefully, skill, are just growing and expanding as if unleashed, instead of festering inside to crush these qualities under the daily routine of living. I feel like a pot boiling over.
David Pesce was a brilliant and entertaining speaker, and though I will read his book, Armistad, one can tell just by his exuberance in verbal communication that his writing must be decent as well. Victoria Zackheim spoke and read passages from her novel, The Bone Weaver and her love for her characters and her craft shone through in her voice. Both of these published writers reiterated the tough road an author takes towards publication, and while discouraging to one’s dreams, proves that it can be done, although profit is obviously taken from the satisfaction of accomplishment rather than financial gain. Discouraging, yes. But just as encouraging in the knowledge of the game, and the direction that can be taken just to continue the craft in some form, i.e., teaching, editing, hell, just having ANYTHING at all to do with the business of writing that keeps one within its arena.
Steve Ersinghaus finally got me hot on the idea of hypertext, no small feat. I resisted it as a reader, and I resist it as a writer. But anything I approach with stubborn distrust is usually something I want to know more about and question more deeply. Most of my questions have been answered by his presentation, and I’m willing to disassemble the walls I have built up against it. John Timmons walked the audience through a couple of interactive fiction pieces (although I desperately wanted him to go through Schrapnel which has been my nemesis and has never left my mind since I got into but abandoned it many months ago) and beautifully explained the writing process within it.
I can’t speak for the others in attendance, but there’s no doubt in my mind that many like me came away with fired-up furnaces of desire to continue following through with our need to create.
Who said writing is always a lonely choice of life? Oddly enough, it takes words from others to inspire the words within oneself to come out.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
Insert a Trite Metaphor About a Corral
In the aftermath of Sunday’s march, abortion was a major theme for many bloggers.