I experienced my first day of the Super Star's Writing seminar in Pasadena today and boy was it fun! The writers (The dynamic couple Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta (in the photo with me) , Wunderboy Brandon Sanderson, well respected mentor David Farland and the prolific Eric Flint) all joined forces to teach a lot of common sense and some dirty secrets as well.
I found that the 7 hours of actual lectures went really quickly and for someone with the attention span of a 3 year old, I was engrossed most of the time(the times I was fidgety was because of the sound problems, I couldn't hear 2 of the 45 minute discussions but hopefully they will fix that for tomorrow)
I met Grammar Girl (if only I had a brain sucking device I would steal her knowledge of grammar because I suck at it, that's what you get for leaving school at 16 folks!) and some of the attendees were Babylon 5 fans so that was kind of fun.
It was great to hear Brandon's success story told by him with enthusiasm and fresh wonderment at his rapid rise to fame and fortune. His power point was a nice touch as well.
The overwhelming thing I took home with me is that I do not write enough by far. These folks are serious writers, that's what they do for a living and they do it everyday. I have heard that in the past a million times but for some reason today it really hit home so I'm going to start a schedule next week of daily writing no matter what! The great thing about today was that it was all about the business of writing, what editors won't put up with, how to exploit your intellectual property (couldn't hear that one but I'm sure it was great) and the economics of commercial publishing, all stuff you don't generally learn as you're slogging away at your great American novel.
I have come to the conclusion that I really like genre people, the fans, the writers, the creators, actors, all of it. They are simply really neat people; interesting, generous and mostly very kind. I knew that before but today reminded me of it.
I am ready for the rest of the seminar, bring it on!
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