RTW- Conferences

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.


I love attending the Loft's Children's and Young Adult Literature Conference. I take classes at the Loft and my writing group meets at the Loft so this space is very familiar to me. This year's conference was wonderful with a keynote speech by Justin Chanda about picture books. I also attended at session on revision taught by Megan Atwood which was probably the most fun I'd had thinking about revision. 

My other must attend conference is WriteOnCon. This is a free conference held online. There are forums and you can post your writing and get/give feedback. There are chats and presentations. It is amazing. Plus it's free. No conference fee, no travel costs, no paying a babysitter to watch your kids. You can even donate to the conference which is a super awesome thing to do.

My dream conference is to attend a SCBWI conference in either NY in the winter or LA in the summer. My biggest obstacle is work.  See it isn't easy to get a lot of time off from work in this business we call show.  I'm hoping that the stars and schedules will align this year and that the NY conference will work for me this year. I want to go there early and see some shows on Broadway before the conference. To that end I want to get the most out of the conference possible so I have been working on revising my MG novel like crazy.

What is your dream conference?

Putting the pieces together

Revising is a lot like working on a puzzle. You fill in the pieces that you know, like the edges but then you've got this whole middle to deal with.  Sometimes you struggle to find the right piece and then you go for a bit working on a section and all the pieces seem to fit together. 

With writing you don't have the benefit of having a picture of what the finished product will look like which is kinda like the puzzle below where the picture didn't exactly match the one on the box. 

Lately for me the pieces seem to be falling into place. Writing/revising wise I feel like I'm on one of those streaks where the pieces are starting to fit together nicely.  I'm really excited about this place right now.

Puzzle- using Instagram app

Where are you in your project? Just putting the edge pieces in, working your way through the middle, inviting everyone to come look at the finished puzzle?

Don't Rain On Our Parade

Yesterday was supposed to be the much anticipated May Day Parade in my neighborhood. The parade is put on by Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theater. It is a wonderful sight to see all the puppets and the parade tells a story. Each section has a different element to the story. The story is always something hopeful.

Sadly it was rescheduled for next weekend due to a rainy weekend including crazy storms overnight. Standing water isn't the best thing for this festival. I won't be able to attend next week because of work.

With my day suddenly free I had two options- celebrate the fact that I could leave my neighborhood by leaving my neighborhood or celebrate the suddenly free day by writing. (It is nearly impossible to leave the neighborhood during the parade because so many people come to the parade.) There were plays and author events galore yesterday but I chose to stay home and write and I'm glad I did because this happened on my street.

A May Day Don't Rain On Our Parade

Dragon bike

Smell the Flowers

Sloth

Pedal Dive Bar- I love this thing

Needless to say the day felt magical even though the official parade was cancelled. I worked on my revision and I now have a picture book idea for my May 12x12in 12.

What magical things have you seen because you decided to stay and write?