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This past weekend, I attended the annual Missouri Writers' Guild conference, and I have come back inspired, refreshed, and renewed. (Okay and a little tired.) I thought I'd do a few blog posts on things I learned at the conference; and I'm going to start with a wonderful three-hour workshop I attended on Sunday morning with historical romance writer, Bobbi Smith. Her workshop was "Romance Writing A to Z,"and she had several tips, ideas, and inspiration for each letter of the alphabet, including X and Z! I took the course because my young adult novel has some romantic elements, and I'd heard Bobbi was a wonderful and generous teacher. I wasn't disappointed. Here are a few highlights for The Muffin readers from Bobbi's workshop:

• D is for Dialogue: Don't be an adverb junky when you are writing dialogue tags. When your protagonist is talking to your antagonist, she doesn't need to shout loudly or state angrily. By her words and actions, we can tell that she is not happy with his (or her) actions. Each character has his or her own voice. If you read the line of dialogue without the tag, you should be able to tell which character said it.
  
• H is for Hero: If you write romance or any novel where you have a hero, the following might be helpful to you. Bobbi shared a list of eight male archetypes: the chief, the bad boy, the best friend, the charmer, the lost soul, the professor, the swashbuckler, and the warrior. Workshop participants had a great time trying to think of popular movie and book characters to fit each type. For example, how about Indiana Jones? Is he a combination of the professor and the swashbuckler? Where would you put Edmund (the lost soul or the charmer) or Jacob (the best friend) from Twilight?
• O is for Opening: Bobbi said, "You've got to grab them by the heart." One of the most interesting things she talked about was how quickly you have to grab a reader and editor in today's market. She started writing in the 1980s, and she said you had 50 pages to get the story started and a reader invested. Now, you're lucky if you have 10!
  
• V is for Vision: What is the vision you have for your career? Sure, we all want to be the next Stephenie Meyer or Dan Brown; but realistically, those Cinderella stories can't happen to all of us. Bobbi said that her vision was once she was published, she would always have a book contract. She would become a full-time writer and continue to create stories for her readers. She also hoped to get her books into grocery stores and super centers like Wal-mart. And guess what? Her vision has come true. She told us to envision what we want out of our writing career and set goals to attain it.
  

....and buy a pick-up, take it down to LA".

OK, so I know it's not a pick-up but there's a few of reasons why I had to use this title. I've been listening to Harvest by Neil Young all week. A classic album to go with this classic camper van. This is one of my all time favourite openings to a song. Actually, not only is it the opening to the song but to the whole album. I hear those words and get tingles. In my life I've always felt this way. Like packing it all in, buying a pick-up and heading for the refuge of the roads. I've never been able to shake that feeling off. Ole Neil, bugger Lynyrd Skynyrd, I need you around.

I'm going away for a few days too, so actually I am taking to the road (I'm not going to LA though). Don't know if' I'll get a chance to post much this week but hopefully I'll get some drawing done.

Finally, a few weeks ago an old friend found me through Facebook. We'd lost touch and not seen each other for about 10 years. I told her that I wasn't the old hippy she known back then, I'd really changed. Hmmm. She didn't believe a word of it and after this post I kind of think she may be right!

Ooops, I haven't quite finished yet! It's a bit of a rubbishy drawing but my first vehicle. Inspired by France Belleville (I wasn't brave enough to do a side view - it's the wheels that scare me off drawing cars) who coincidentally made this post yesterday; Neil.
Cheers everyone, see you when I get back to town.