friday, part 1

Friday, Part I

I cannot believe how early I got up on Friday morning. Like at 7:05 (6:05 my time), which was just Too Damned Early, especially with having gotten up at 5 the previous day. However, I managed to both shave my legs and get to the van in time to be brought to Karen’s house, where Julie made scrambled eggs with peppers that made me burp pepper tastes all day, but which were otherwise very good. :)

Liz Wolfe and I went to the airport to pick Sarah, whose plane was running late, up, and then there was a sort of comedy of errors because 1. we didn’t know what flight she was on, and 2. she was waiting for us outside while I was waiting for her inside, so — well, it took a while. But eventually we connected, and we went to … a bookstore, the name of which is escaping me, which is next to Arts West, where we held part of our afternoon. There was a book signing/reception thing going on there, and I was carrying around the small critter-cat which Sarah had given me (he’s very cute!) and discussing the possibility of running a contest to name him. Several people stopped to admire him, including Larry Dixon, who may have given him the name Monkcat, as he looks like a monkey or a cat, depending on your personal take on the matter, so I named him Monk for short, and met Larry. :)

We trundled over to Arts West after the luncheon/reception thingy, and milled around for a while, while they finished setting up the downstairs for us.

Johann Sorensen, who has written a thriller called Diamond Lies, gave a presentation on infusing your writing with conflict, and read a great transitional scene from his book, in which the protagonists were driving too fast on a canyon road and of course another vehicle came along. He stopped reading before we found out what happened, and there was a sort of horrified pause/gasp while we all went, “AUGH! He STOPPED READING!” but then we all said to each other, “This passage was only halfway through the book, so probably they survived.” :) So that was pretty interesting, really. He had a couple of nice examples from his own writing, and then read some first lines that were good hooks, then had people write their own first lines as hooks. Julie had a very fine first line–something along the lines of, “Blood in my mouth always reminds me of the taste of a new copper penny,” and I fail to remember anyone else’s.

Liz Wolfe gave a short seminar on how to write a query letter/pitch, and provided a template handout to make it easier for people to hang the important plot points on it. I’m keeping mine, because it looks like a useful tool.

Kathi Troyer, who works for the Arizona, uh. State crime lab. Gave a really *cool* seminar about how crime labs really work (as opposed to how CSI shows them), and sort of dreadfully, everybody at the con went to that instead of to the poetry reading that was going on. Oops.

Then, because the rooms were stuffy and the chairs uncomfortable, we all picked up and went back to the Junker residence.

Now I take a break from writing, because I’m v. sleepy.