James River Writers Convention blurb

I felt like "the woman who walked out on David Baldacci" as I left the auditorium. David was, indeed, in the podium answering maybe the sixth question following his presentation. Well, if everyone wants to do a marathon Q&A with David, okay, go ahead, but I have to get up every so often and move around. I was sitting in maybe the fourth row and the room was packed. I was at the third Plenary Session (whatever that is – I think it means for the entire group) of the James River Writers Convention.

David is a good speaker. Very entertaining. Gives good answers, too. My favorite: to the question "Where do you get your ideas?"

"People act as if I have about 12 ideas and that when I'm done writing about them it will be over." He went on to say that he is passionate about curiosity and is an information junkie, collecting from everywhere he can. "As long as I have a passion for curiosity, I'll have ideas." Which I loved because I'm curious and love collecting information. Nice to know my penchant for web surfing is an asset.

Passion, vision and themes were words I heard a lot throughout the day. They were good for fiction, non-fiction, talking to agents, publishing, discovering your novel's genre and screenwriting.

The critique of first pages (which followed David's talk), during which the first page and a half of a novel were read anonymously, focused on those old journalism W's: who, what, where, when, how. If you can't stuff that into the first page and a half you will lose (apparently) four out of four editors and agents. Still, it was instructive to see how an agent's or editor's personal preference and speciality influenced wether or not they decided to pursue publishing a novel.

I didn't hear any analysis about the current and long-lasting fad for lean writing or hollywood influenced action/adventure stylistics. The novel has got to rock in the first few paragraphs or it's over. Apparently no reader is willing to hang out for awhile and take the time to become slowly immersed in a novel. Ah, the 1800's!

I'm going back tomorrow for another full day. I'm looking forward to it even if it means that today doesn't feel like Friday and I might be even more tired tomorrow than I am today. I learned a lot. I'm looking forward to the last minute addition "Connecting Fiction and Non-Fiction." Seems to be a trend.