Chuckanut Writer's Conference 2016 {Day 2)

Here is my summary of Day 2 of the conference, a few days late. This post is only going to cover the first half of the day, as the final session I attended deserves a post all of its own.

The first session I went to for the day was called The Tao of Daily Writing by Susan Colleen Brown. The first part of the session involved making realistic goals. How long can you realistically write each day? How many days a week can you realistically do that? And also setting some intention for your writing. For me, I came up with the realistic goal of writing 30-45 minutes a day, 6 days a week. This is a goal I would like to exceed, but I know that this is a manageable starting place.

The rest of the session (the other 40 minutes of it) were taken up by introductions. Every person there introduced themselves, their work, and how they fit writing into their day. I was a bit disappointed by this. The first part of the session seemed like it was going in a useful direction, but I wished the introductions part hadn't taken up the entire remainder of the time.

The second session of the day was a panel entitled Hitting the Right Note: A Conversation on Creating Your Character's Voice. The authors on the panel were: David Laskin, Sam Ligon, and Stephanie Kallos.

This panel ended up being a bit all over the place, so I thought I'd just list some of the quotes and pieces of advice I jotted down, organized by who said them.

David Laskin:

"Every piece has it's own voice and rhythm, they don't have to be the same."

Journaling and freewriting in the 2nd person can help you seperate yourself from your usual writing ruts, and keep creativity high.

Writing in the 1st person and the rewriting everything into 3rd (or the other way around) can be helpful as well.

"Imprint a character you're having trouble with onto a real person you know. What would that person do or say in a given situation?"

"Any day writing in a productive day, no matter what you write."

Sam Ligon:

"Prose is musical - the voice is the song"

Your first run is instict, get into the song and voice - the craft comes later. If you can't hear it, you can't write it.

"Short and long sentences mixed creates tension."

"Write for a smart reader. Assume they are as intelligent or more intelligent than you."

Stephanie Kallos:

"Give us long thoughts with a strong, present conclusion."

To spark creativity, make lists.

After this, I went to one more session. I had to leave the conference early, and so missed the last two break out periods. But the last session I went to deserves a much longer form thought that I can add to this post. To continue reading about that, click here.