Semester's end and Storymakers

This has been a busy, wonderful, crazy week.

The first part of the week is a bit of a blur--Dan and I handed in final grades, and on Wednesday, we celebrated "Star Wars Day" (May the 4th . . . be with you). Kind of nerdy, but that's how we roll.

The kids and I wore Star wars shirts, and after school the older kids had friends over and we made Star Wars sugar cookies, using the cookie cutters that come out once a year--on May the 4th.

Of course, since there were eight kids running around my house, the cookies were all gone in about forty minutes.

Thursday I drove up to Provo with my wonderful writing friends for one of my favorite writing conferences, LDStorymakers. This was my fifth (?) year going, and every year I come away inspired with new ideas and new friends (a huge thank you to Dan for making this possible!)

I've been on the faculty for this conference the last couple of years, and this year was no exception. I was part of a workshop Thursday afternoon on prepping materials to submit to literary agents and editors (writing query letters, synopses, pitches, etc.). Friday afternoon I taught two classes, one on Writing Emotion (the objective correlative) and one I co-taught on online pitch contests.





The first of these ended up shocking me--I was right after lunch, and lunch ended early so I thought I'd go get set up and have time to run over my notes. Instead, I discovered that I didn't have an adaptor I needed to connect my laptop to the podium, so I ran off to find the appropriate tech guy (hunted all over the building unsuccessfully) and came back to the classroom to find that the room was full to bursting--every seat was full and there were people sitting on the floor in front--with 20 minutes still to go before the class was supposed to start. Someone suggested I talk to the committee about a bigger room. I was already feeling stressed about the tech, and this just added to my nerves! Luckily, someone loaned me their Mac and a tech guy showed up with an adaptor we could use--just as one of the committee members showed up to say we were switching rooms.

I got a room twice as large and there were *still* people sitting on the floor up front. (Here's my view of the room, just before the class started). Afterward, several people complimented me on my direct approach to the class, that I started right into the material without spending lots of time introducing myself or explaining my background. Truth is, I was too nervous to think of anything other than the topic! Luckily, my teaching training kicked in as soon as I started, I calmed down, and I think the class went pretty well.

I also got to spend time with some of my writing friends (including the two on the floor in the picture above). Here are some of my "Swanky Seventeen" friends--other writers whose first books are coming out next year like mine. 

Another wonderful thing about the conference: my agent (Josh Adams) was in town for the conference, so I got to see lots of him. I met him at this same conference two years ago. Saturday night, after the conference, he took me and two other clients to dinner; Sunday morning, one of my writer friends (and an "agent-sister") hosted a brunch in her beautiful new home for Josh and all our families, since his flight didn't leave until early this evening.

For my mother's day, Dan brought all the kids up north (they spent Saturday playing with Sarah) so that we could go to the brunch--also, so I had a ride home, since my ride up left Saturday afternoon when the conference finished.

I hope our readers had a wonderful week--now, to planning Evelyn's birthday and catching up on everything I didn't do last week . . .