Prep Work: A Conference Newbie Primer Pt 3 - What (Not) To Wear

not business casual

Clean and Appropriate
If you ask my seven year old what my rules are for dressing she can tell you, "Clean and Appropriate."
She will probably also roll her eyes at you and ask if you have any Hubba Bubba, but I digress.

C&A is my mantra with my kids. Not matching, not stylish, not fairies, mermaids, pink, blue, yellow, high/low/no fashion. I don't care what they chose to wear (yes, I let them dress themselves, to the shock and dismay of many of my friends and family.) I just want it to be right for the weather, the occasion and for your age group (no tube tops until you are 30+ and breast feeding your own child) and I want it to be clean.

That's  how I'm approaching conference dressing. I'm wearing pants, a nice-ish shirt and a cardigan (don't forget, hotel air conditioning can be merciless!), pretty much every day of the event. I may wear a dress one day just for the heck of it, but I'll see how I feel. I want to look like myself, that's important to me, so I won't wear a suit, though I think it's fine if people do (though business casual tends to mean you don't have to wear a suit) and I won't wear jeans and sneakers, again because that's not me. I want to be comfortable with the person I'm presenting to others. Now is not the time to try to look different, or how you 'think' a writer should look. Now is not the time for re-invention, it's the time to reveal who you are to a whole bunch of new friends.

Having said all that there is one thing that I must do when I am nervous, when I am in a social situation where I feel the need for 'armor' or a little psychic support. I must wear red lipstick. Putting it on makes me feel confident, ready. It's not 'F**K me' red lipstick, it's church-red lipstick, totally appropriate. To me, putting on the red lipstick signals that it's show time.

Snacks
I'm bringing:

• My water bottle
• My box of Cascadian Farms Vanilla Chip granola bars
• My box of Planter's Nutrition Heart Healthy mix mini packs (why so many peanuts? why not more pistachios?)
• MINTS! Because the amount of coffee I will be consuming over the weekend will probably give me awful coffee breath.
• Hershey's Kisses - to share and to console myself when things go wrong

So, I want to know from you:

1) When you attended your first conference, what's the one thing you wish you did that you didn't do?

2) And, if you haven't attended your first conference yet - what's holding you back?

Something I Know, Something I Don't Know

Wow. That A-Z Blogging challenge kicked my ass. I didn't know just how much until I went to post a blog and found I couldn't. I was spent. Doesn't help that I have the sprogs all to myself this week as husband is out of town on business. Now I'm ready to blog again.

I have to start thinking about the conference I'm going to in 10 days. I can't just show up to something without mentally preparing myself. I mean, I have to imagine myself there, imagine myself going to workshops, remind myself to bring pencils and business cards. Do some deep, calming breathing. I'm a nerd. Correction, I'm a nervous nerd.

I've never gone to a full on conference, just a one day event last year. I don't know what to expect and that makes me squirrely. I don't want to waste the opportunity, but I just don't know how to approach it. I need help.

But I'm not holding my hand out to y'all without something in return. Something valuable. Yes, my empanada recipe. That's the something I know, and you can read it in full after the jump. What I want from YOU is survival tips on conference attending. And, if you are attending the Pennwriter's Conference in Pittsburgh next week, will you be my beer buddy? Thanks!

Writing Tip Thursday #7 - Sketching for Writers

I write the way that I draw and paint. The punch line would be ‘ha ha, not very well” but I do draw and paint rather well. And I do it in a way that makes sense to me, process-wise, despite teachers who have told me I would get better results doing it another way. I sketch. I sketch and I sketch lightly. I put in rough ideas and, when it strikes me, I flesh something out, but other things I leave just surface impressions of. Some writing advice says you should, like the Red King, start at the beginning and keep going on until the end, then stop. Other advice has it that you should just write what you are excited about at the moment and go back and piece it all together later. 

All great advice. But for me, I need to power through. I need to get something, a couple of lines a feeling, no matter how dumb or poorly written, down on the page. I grant you, it's much more daunting for me to go back and fill in, shore up weaknesses and rout problems. But it's the only way that I can keep going. I've tried the other way and it makes me stall out. I sit and think and think until I'm so thunk out that all I've got to show for it is a firm believe that I'll never be a writer. By sketching out I can show myself, my harshest critic that I can create something and it's not half bad. In the face of 80k words of evidence, it's harder to nay-say.

I also sketch when I'm stuck. A few days ago, when I was looking at what I'd written and deleted, written and deleted written and started to delete again, I stopped. Put the laptop DOWN. And got out my sketchbook. I drew this:

It's Finis Terra City, a place in my WIP.  Now, this causes it's own frustrations, of course. This isn't really what I had in mind and as a drawing, it's kinda poor (I did have to use my daughter's crayons, so that's one reason it's not the best) but it does two things: It takes my mind off of words to tell my story. Having to visualize what my world looks like brings me out to the 'bigger picture' literally - what does this world look like? Second, it keeps me in my world but not concentrating on plot or action - what's next, what's next? I can contemplate the architecture of this world and the idea I had of concentric fortress walls. I can ask myself, what kind of technology exists here that doesn't exist in the rest of BookEnd? And why?

This is still working on my book, still 'writing' in fact, it's crucial to do. And the perfect way to unblock.

When that doesn't work and I need to get away from my WIP, but I don't want to sit drooling in front of the TV, I sketch. This time, because I've volunteered to create a 24' mural for International Day at my daughter's school. Here's a detail of a toucan for the mural:

Why is this important? Because being creative, in whatever way you do it, feeds other creativity. I firmly believe it. Whether it's writing a blog post, drawing, singing, whatever uses your creativity and makes you feel like you've made something wonderful - do it. I guarantee that it will help move the ball forward. Even if it feels like goofing off.