My PRO loop has been talking about the RWA National Conference pretty much since the flood. Since this is my first conference, I have been infinitely grateful for the length of this discussion. If you know me, you'll know that I always like to be prepared when I go somewhere new, and I need to understand things before I do them. So this discussion has helped me so much.

But it wasn't until today that I realized how much it's really helped me.

I'm not a big goal-setter. Or at least, until this year, I didn't think I was. I don't get particularly excited about those annual reviews where you set goals for the coming year. When I worked in a non-profit setting, where that was pretty much the modus operandi, it drove me crazy. I'm not a high Focus person. I don't need to see the mountaintop in order to know I want to get there.

But I am very strategic. In fact, that's one of my Top Ten Strengths. I joke with my mom a lot (who has #1 Strategic) that she never asks me out for coffee unless it's Strategic Coffee, meaning there's something she wants to talk about in a public place where the atmosphere will be more congenial. She has coffee at the same time every day, she wants to talk to me in a public place about something specific. Boom. Strategic Coffee. I, on the other hand, often want to have coffee with people for no particular reason. This is why I have a lower Strategic theme than she does. Anyway, that's beside the point. Because I do have a pretty high Strategic theme.

When I plan to do errands, for instance, I'll make out a list of everywhere I have to go and in my head, a plan develops. These two places are on the same side of town, and then I can't make a left turn on that street so instead, I'll do those two on the way back so I can right turn in and out, and then I won't have to cross 19th. Stop at a different store for milk because it's close to home. Do shopping for a party two days earlier because I'm planning to be out at Costco already today. Et cetera. I like strategy.

So I'm going to have a sit-down with myself. What are my goals for RWA Nationals? Am I there to meet agents and editors, primarily? Other authors, primarily? To represent my chapters? To learn? To have fun? What do I want to get out of National Conference?

My mother will be so proud. Strategic Conference. :-)

What about you? Are you going to RWA Nationals? ACFW Nationals? How do you prepare for conference? What are your goals for going to a writer's conference like this? What do you think a new writer's conference goals should be?

My friend Shirley turned me on to the Facebook Networked blogs recently. If you are a blogger and you use this, find my Networked blog (this one and/or my foodie romance one) on Facebook and connect with me. I like the rss reader feature on it, and I already go to Facebook to do other things, so it would be really easy for me to read my blogs on there. I've found as many of you as I can. But if you find me, network with me. It's something new I'm trying out to see how it works.

Do you use any other blog networking software? How do you like it? What do you not like about it? Just interested to know what thoughts are out there.

My band had its first big gig this weekend. Last Saturday, to be specific. It was a very interesting experience. (The picture on the right is from Sabbath Night Live, where we all played together--all six of us--for the first time.)

First, the gig was one that none of us really understood going in. We just sort of had been asked to play, and so we showed up with our equipment and played. It was a mixture of age-range and background, preference and style, and then you had the audience, who were just all over the place. Haha. Okay, so one of the things we pride ourselves on is that we have an eclectic background. And we don't really have one set style. We play a mix of different musics. We have some bluegrass, some funk, some rock, some pop, some country, some celtic/folk. We do a mix of everything, and we like it.

Not everyone gets that.

And I guess that's okay.

Someone came up to us after the gig was over and started talking about this band he's in. He made a point to talk about how many "cover bands" there are out there, and how his band was taking its time, not getting gigs, and trying to find their sound and write their own music.

I completely get this obsession with originality. My band mates will probably say that I push us too hard, sometimes, away from just doing covers. I want even our covers to be more about us than the covers. Even when the covers sound good.

But frankly, not all bands serve the same purpose. Yes, if we wanted to get a recording contract and tour the country (or even play bigger venues around the state), we would need to write our own music and find our own sound. But that's not really what we're about. And as far as I know, we're all okay with that. This is probably the most talented group of musicians I've ever played with before, and they're all studio quality in their own rite (and in their own genre). But we have a blast just playing together. The whole point was to do songs that we'd always wanted to do but had never done. So while you're listening to us, you might not even recognize a single song we do. (Except if you're a Peter Gabriel fan, you might know "Solisbury Hill", because apparently it's super famous... I'd never heard of it before, but I also never listened to Peter Gabriel before. I know, I know, the horror.)  But we're okay with that. We're doing what we want to do.

If we were in it for the fame or the money, we might do it differently. And yeah, we want the songs to be quality, and we want the performance to be good, but we're not really worried about the rest of it. And I think I like that. Sometimes. Of course, sometimes, I want to push the envelope. But I think this is one envelope that doesn't need to be pushed. I think we're all happy doing what we're doing. And we're just glad we get to play together. I've been in other bands before where that kind of cameraderie didn't exist, and it eventually gets to a not-fun place. This, at least, should stay in a fun place.

We are, after all, Not That Serious. :-)

Contest season has apparently been in full swing for quite awhile. I was having a discussion with a friend today on whether or not contests were beneficial. She's the kind of person who is very confident in her story and doesn't need a lot of input into her process. I'm the opposite. I like my story a lot, but I want a lot of input. I may have a lack of confidence. I like to think of it as a desire for feedback. :-) A rose by any other name? Not sure.

Anyway, I recently finaled in the Virginia RWA Fool for Love contest and got my judged entries back. While the scores were very complimentary, there was a LOT of feedback on the entries. When I first started entering contests, I wanted to get perfect scores and have no feedback from the judges. But now I'm the opposite. I want real scores and feedback. Because I need perspective on my story.

Sometimes, I get too caught up in the love of my own story to see things that need to be changed. Even my critique partners can be that way about my book. I love the positive feedback. But the book is not where I want it to be. And I think asking my critique partners to look at a third and fourth version of some parts of the book is just cruel. They're almost as saturated as I am.

I've always gotten very useful feedback from the contest judges when I've entered.

I'm batting .333, so I'm not doing too bad. But I've still entered and not placed in six contests this year. Six contests that I wanted to final in, but did not. And yet I got my money's worth out of them. I got three (and in some cases, four) sets of great feedback.

But I will say that contests are not for everyone. You have to know what you're getting. The odds of finaling are low (1/3 in my case). The odds of getting feedback are nearly 100%. I enter contests where I want the editor/agent in my area to read my work. But I know in the back of my head that I'm probably not going to final, and I have to be prepared for that.

What about you? Have you entered contests only to be rejected? Did you get any helpful feedback from the judges? What has kept you from entering contests? Or what makes you want to enter them?

This last week, I have spent almost every waking moment either in or working on Young Singers Club camps. This week was our first week. Young Singers Club is a performing arts camp for kids. We take one artist/group/show per week per age group and work through a repertoire with 12 kids. Our tag line is "empowering students through musical performance". The original Young Singers Club (which is slightly different than what we do) is housed in Santa Barbara, CA. But ours take place in Bozeman, of course.

This was our first camp of the summer. We had two groups this week. Sound of Music. Taylor Swift. Both groups were a lot of fun, and both groups did an excellent job in their recital last night.

After spending this much time working with musical skills and kids, I've noticed a few things about myself.

First, I do miss working with kids. I used to run a youth center. I spent more than six hours a day every day with middle and high school kids. I miss that. Kids are cool. I mean, sometimes they're really not, but most of the time, they are really just an amazing bunch of people to be around.

Second, I need substantial alone time. The writing life of the last several months has created in me a need to be alone, to write, to be creative. As much as I love kids, I really need quite a bit of time every week to be by myself and to work on my writing. It feeds me. I miss it. I found myself every day at about 4:30 when I got home, rushing to my computer for about twenty minutes to write stuff down before I had to head back out to wherever I needed to be.

Third, I like to work with my friends. I wasn't in a great mood last week, for many reasons. But getting to work with Kath & Sarah made it a lot better for me. And getting to meet a new friend, Deborah, was nice too. It was a lot easier for me to be honest and be myself because I was working with people I knew. I wasn't having a great time, it wasn't their fault, it wasn't the kids' fault, and they didn't give me a hard time about it. They let me do what I needed to do and helped me to put it behind me sometimes, but didn't make me bury it. That was nice.

Fourth, I kinda like Taylor Swift. Honestly, I was the one dragging my feet on that camp. I don't generally like country music. I'm not a huge fan of teen pop country especially. I can't stand Miley Cyrus, and I associated Taylor Swift with her. But I was wrong. I've found myself consistently singing her music today. In fact, I'm listening to her right now. You'd think that I would have gotten enoughTaylor Swift to last me a lifetime last week (all day, every day). But I'm singing along to "Teardrops on my Guitar" right now...

Fifth, I love seeing people learn. There's a special kind of energy I get from seeing people grow through the week. Especially when I hear their parents tell me at the end of the week that they can tell the difference in their kid just from a week of our camp. It's cool in a way I can't really explain.

I have VBS next week, then we have a week off, then I have three weeks of camp. I needed to write this, partially, to remind myself that I thought it. :-) I think in the midst of some of these camps, I might tend to wonder if I ever really enjoyed it. And I just wanted to remind myself that I do. This is a very fun and very rewarding experience. If any of you get a chance to enter your kids, I hope you head to the website and do so. We're going to be doing Disney/Glee in two weeks. We'll be doing Wicked, Mamma Mia, Broadway Revue, Wicked, Mary Poppins, and Glee!

Tune in for pictures later and more experiences.

Oh, and also tune in for more announcements about my writing.

What about you? Did you have a favorite day camp as a kid? Have you ever run a day camp for kids before? What was your experience like? If you are a parent, what do you look for in a day camp for your kids?

I was at McDonald's this morning, getting my internet fix while on the road, and eating a parfait. Stage set. In McDonald's are probably seven or eight couples. Couples only. And then me. It's a huge restaurant. There are televisions, computers, tons of tables. But somehow, we all ended up sort of congregated in the same section. Most of them were old, so I chalked it up to them perhaps knowing each other, and continued to read my Kindle and tweet.

Several people, as I've been traveling, have had questions about my Kindle. Whever I pull it out and read it (the airport, the line at Albertson's, the dentist, McDonald's), it attracts bystanders like a car wreck. They want to look at it, touch it, use it, read it, ask questions. It's amazing. It's like a tiny baby. Everyone wants to hold it.

So I'm in McDonald's this morning, and this guy comes up to ask questions about my Kindle. We get to chatting for a bit, and he asks me about my marital status. (Those of you who don't know me, I wear a ring on my left hand, precisely to get people not to ask about my marital status. I am not married.) I had mentioned I was traveling alone (because I had so much time to read my Kindle), and yet I was wearing a wedding ring. Hmmm, it's a mystery.

So I told him I wasn't married. The ring was a gift from a friend, which it was, and I just wore it because that's the finger it fits on, which is also true.

He said, "aww, that's too bad." And proceded to look around the McDonald's. Including at the table where he and his wife (probably in their 60s) were having breakfast. His wife was sitting alone, about three chairs down, eating her pancakes in silence.

I said, "why is that?"

"Well, nobody wants to be alone, right?"

Right?

I got to thinking about that. I wasn't trying to be snarky with the guy. It was just strange that he would apologize to me for my own life choice. I wasn't trying to be mean to him, I just don't get it why being alone is such a bad thing.

I love to be alone.

I love to travel alone, to watch TV alone, to cook alone, to dance alone.... I don't hate being alone. And I don't feel sorry for myself because I'm single. I don't think there's something wrong with me because I'm single, and it's not a lifestyle choice I'm desperately trying to change. I like it. I like myself. I want to be with myself right now. Sometime in the future, I might want to be with someone else, too, because let's face it, there are a lot of cool people in this world and it would be fun to be with one of them. But I'm not in that place right now.

I don't think it's wrong or bad or shameful to be alone.

And I think more people need to think that and say it. And I think we need to teach it to our children. Yes, isolating is not healthy. But being alone is not wrong. And as long as you can manage to keep relationships in tact, some of us might need to spend significant time by ourselves. I know, for me, that's how I recharge my batteries.

So, yes, sometimes if you see that person sitting by themselves reading a Kindle, they might be lonely. And they might need a friend. And they might want to talk to you. But it's just as likely that they might want to be left alone.

They might (*shudder*) like it.

These are what I consider to be the best of the best of what I've read in the blogosphere this week. I'm not trying to make any negative quality statements about any other posts. Just that these particularly struck me as being helpful, funny, interesting, quirky, insert adjective here.

* This was absolutely one of the most fantastic articles I've ever read. What makes a man worthy of being a hero? And is true love possible? Phe-Nom-En-Al. Phenomenal. Period. Theresa Medieros, you are a genius.

* Really insightful post on indie marketing, self-publishing, and quality. I highly recommend you read this if you're interested in self-publishing. Need to know how to think about some of this stuff.

* This was an absolutely fantastic post about how you know whether you're going to be successful as a writer or not. Loved it.

* Great post from Jennifer Hudson Taylor on her first book launch experience.

* Michael Hyatt wrote a phenomenal post about the telltale sign of a master writer. I can say, after ten years of doing this without getting the "glamorous" part yet, I think he's probably right.

* Rachelle Gardner writes such inspiring posts. Like this one... on believing in your publishing dreams. One of these weeks, I'm going to go a whole week without liking one of Rachelle Gardner's blog posts. I promise. Okay, I can't promise. Seriously, she has the best agent blog out there. Yes, Nathan Bransford, that was a throw-down.

* All you writers out there who are looking for good psychological evaluation of character traits. Forget buying books. Just read the blog of The Character Therapist. She's always got helpful information on there. And this post was a particularly insightful one for me, based on what I'm currently writing.

* Great post on writing settings by Lynn Viehl over at Paperback Writer.

My mom is obsessed with this show called America's Got Talent. And last year, against my will, I started watching it with her. Loved it. So this year, when the first episodes started airing, we started gearing up for the new season.

In case you've never seen the show before, there are four kinds of acts. I'll break them down into groups for ya.

They've Got No Talent
These are the acts that are really only here for their 15 minutes of fame. The dancers who obviously can't dance. The singers who obviously can't sing. The comedians who obviously aren't funny. They just want to be on TV in front of the audience. Some of them know they're bad. Some of them don't. Some of them cry when they don't make it to Vegas. Some of them aren't surprised at all.

They've Got Talent-Ish
These are the acts who either used to be good, or who have a bit of talent, but don't know how to use it. Some of them might be groups where one person is talented and the rest are not. Or where there's obviously bad planning, not enough rehearsal, or no creativity. These people, mostly, think they are talented. They often get really frustrated and/or sad when they don't make it to Vegas. Some of them do make it to Vegas, and they get a false sense of their own ability because of it.

They've Got "Talent"
They have some talent, but not enough to sustain a long career. They probably get a lot of applause (and occasionally a standing ovation) from the audience. Whatever number they do for their audition is strong, perhaps even excellent. They make it to Vegas. It's what happens after that that determines their "talent". Because they never do anything to top that first act. And most of them quickly get eliminated. Unless they have a good story (yeah, I've got your number, Kevin Skinner). Then they get in because of Sharon, generally. And we all know America votes for a good story. So they can easily make it into the top, and perhaps even win, and still not really have what it takes to sustain a significant career.














They Have Got Legitimate Talent
These acts, you rarely see in the first round, because the producers (frankly) can sense that they're headed for something excellent, and they want to save the good stuff for later. These acts never (or rarely ever... Piers occasionally will) get buzzed. They finish their entire act, the judges love them, they get standing ovations. And they kick it up to the next level when they get to Vegas. They are creative enough and talented enough to reach the next level.

If you assume that thousands of people try out for this show, and only 20 make it to the finals, the majority of the acts (more than 99% of them, in fact) fall into the first three categories. Most of the acts (based on my experience, I would estimate that over 70% of them) fall into the first two categories. Very few of them will ever be able to sustain a show for 60 minutes. That is hard, even when you have talent. You have to have a special kind of talent to do that.

Interestingly, people in all four of these categories will try to make money from their talent or their "talent". Some of them might con people into taking dance lessons or voice lessons from them. Some of them might be undiscovered genius, stay-at-home-moms, economically challenged, or just without connections. Some of them might be frustrated semi-talented people who would be better doing something else professionally.

In general, I think that the writing world fits into this category as well. I see stories all the time of writers from the first two categories who are arrogant and have an over-blown opinion of their own ability. They query agents with a 250,000 word first novel, and when the agent passes, they send angry emails, publicly flog the agent, or just keep submitting, telling the agent they're crazy to pass on this gem.

Then, there are people who have talent-ish. They probably have one really good book in them, and then maybe a few not-so-bad books. They are decent enough that they will probably get published. They may even have a career. But they probably won't ever top that *one* book that was really excellent.

And then. There are those. There are those who really have the talent. Everyone who reads their work knows how talented they are. They can write a great book followed by a great book followed by an excellent book followed by a great book followed by a superb book. For the rest of their lives. Doens't matter what genre they write in. They're meant to do this.

I hope, of course, that I'm in that fourth category. I'd even settle for being in the third group if I'm honest with myself. And I would probably hate to be in either of the first two categories. I would hate to think that, as much as I adore this job, I could potentially not be able to do it. But of course, that's always a possibility. And, granted, there are plenty of people in category #3 and #4 who never take the chance to get published because they're afraid or unable or have low self-esteem or other reasons.

Of course, the only way to know category we fall into is to write, and to submit, and to see what is what. I don't think this is ever something you can tell about yourself. In fact, if history is any test (and I think it is), then you will probably never be able to tell which area you fall into. Most people in 1 and 2 think they're in 4. And most people in 3 and 4 think they're in 1 and 2. But it's still fun to watch, either way. :-)

What about you? Do you watch this show? Do you have an opinion about my categories? Do you see yourself in one of them? Do you see writers you know in 3 or 4? What do you think?

Ever hit the writing dolldrums?

I came off a couple of great weeks (and a couple of really great days) of writing. I got a ton of work done, I met some important goals, I did the work I wanted to do. I was on a high.

And then I hit the dolldrums. Pretty much today, and looks like it's gonna continue for awhile. I didn't get a thing done today. Other stuff cropped up, my attitude was bad, and frankly, I just didn't want to have anything to do with it.

But the high part was so fresh in my mind, it feels like this slumpy day just came right out of nowhere and caught me completely unawares. So it's perhaps a bit more freakish than I expected. And quicker.

So now I'm sort of wondering what to do. And I thought... who better to ask than my friends? :-) So I'm asking you. now.

What do you do to get out of a writing slump? Do you have a routine you follow? When you need inspiration, what do you do? What inspires you? What makes you want to write again?