Conferencing

When a writer has no income, it can sometimes be hard to take advantage of all the wonderful conferences and festivals around, but I have to admit, there's nothing like the atmosphere and buzz surrounding a good conference to spur me on. I come back to my desk refreshed and re-energised and totally focussed on my writing. This year I've been very extravagant. In February I was in Sydney for the SCBWI conference; in May I went to Melbourne for the CBCA conference, and I'm looking forward now to the CYA Later Alligator conference in Brisbane in September.
I remember vividly the first writing 'do' I ever went to. No one spoke to me. At all. All night. I broke the ice a couple of times with gems such as: 'Sorry, am I in your way?' 'Oh, dear, it's crowded, isn't it? Was that your foot I stood on?' But those few attempts fizzled away.
Fast forward five years and things have changed. The conferences I go to are nearly all focussed on Childrens/YA writing, and childrens/YA authors would have to be the friendliest, most helpful and supportive group of people I've come across. I've been told Romance writers are friendly, too.
To anyone thinking of attending a conference for the first time - do it. Conversations do become easier with practice, and you'll gradually make friends and soon find the same familiar faces pop up at a lot of different festivals around the country. Then it's quite easy to say: 'We met briefly in Sydney. That was a great weekend, wasn't it?'

Procrastination Queen

I've come across an interesting idea lately that says blogs are meant to be used. That is: added to, updated, posted to.... Hmm. Okay, so 2007 rushed by in a blur and 2008 looks like it's going exactly the same way.
I've finished editing Stones of Sahaar. It now stands at 95 000 words. I'm wondering if that's too long for a YA novel? Could I split it in two? I'm going to think about that as I progress with Jewel of Rajpur, but I don't want to make any Huge changes yet because otherwise I'll never get any further on with my story. I get bogged down in research and editing.
Jewel of Rajpur has its own problems at the moment. I'm 50 000 words through and my intrepid team of adventurers haven't reached Rajpur yet. I may have to rethink the title.
My goal for June is 3000 words a day. I have to finish this. I hate keeping track of daily word counts, but drastic action is called for.
So: June 1, word count, zero. Great! Good start to the month, but I did catch the new Indiana Jones movie with the kids.
June 2, word count, um.... Look, it's still early. Anything can happen. I might just read the paper first and have a cup of tea. And it's so miserable outside, drizzling and grey. I might take the papers back to bed for awhile... Hmmm, maybe tomorrow I'll be feeling more productive.