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One of the other great things about the Rural Libraries Conference is that, in addition to giving a keynote presentation, I was also given a workshop slot to … basically do whatever I wanted. One of the things that I think is frequently missing from conference planning is some way to help people with follow-through on the ideas they get or the things they want to try or even keeping in touch with the people they meet. Conferences are often a lot of fast-paced learning and mingling and fun and weird food and odd schedules and then people come home and sleep it off and it all seems like a distant dream when they get back to work. I’m sure this is triply true if you’re at a conference someplace wacky like The Grand Hotel.

So I did a very short presentation called Maintaining Momentum and talked about some ways to keep the energy up. You can read the (very short) slide deck [pdf] to get an idea of what it was like. I did something I basically never do which was get people split up into pairs and give them a buddy to check in with in two weeks, with little handouts to swap email and ideas. We went around the room and talked about things we’d seen that we liked and might want to implement (in the library and just in life generally). I also got an email list of everyone’s contact info (note for future talks: tell people to print legibly) and learned to use MailChimp myself to send a one-time-only “Hey get in touch with your buddy” reminder which was part of what I’d vowed to learn.

It was a great presentation, people were really into it and seemed to enjoy having space for a bit of a meta-discussion about the conference while at the conference. I’m really happy I went outside my usual comfort zone to put it together, very appreciative of the great folks who showed up and gratified that people didn’t talk all the way through this one (except when they were supposed to).

I'm taking a few posts to share some thoughts about novel writing. This week, these thoughts are going to come up close and personal. I've been fearful of moving forward with my current project. I'm writing a big fat sci-fi epic. I'm on schedule with my plan but a certain terror has formed in me. This story has turned a dark corner, and that is not a welcome surprise. I find that my character is in more trouble that I thought she was. I think someone close to her is going to die. Someone I really love.

It's awful. I'm at the place where I have to be willing to follow my character. I have to be willing to follow my story. A novel gains momentum at some point. The impetus for the story is like a reservoir of water that grew and grew and then broke the dam. I thought about so many what ifs and what might bes. The writing is letting the water flood move forward across the plain, but unusual consequences are resulting. Things are getting uncovered that I did not expect.

I had a good conversation about floods this week with Janet Lee Carey. Yes, part of the process is discussing the ins and out of what you are doing with other writers. It's an absorbing, wonderful thing to me. Non-writers would probably find it boring. I also had an online chat with Pink (guess who?) and then Judy Gregerson. All their thoughts are swirling inside me and helping me embrace the true shape of my story. I must be willing. Oh, brave new world.

I have to do a shout out here at the end. The talented Mr. Kevan Atteberry is a member of my picture book critique group and he has been honored. He is the illustrator of the 2008 Children's Book Council's Children's Choice Award, K-2, "Frankie Stein" written by Lola Schafer.

Courage is the first of human qualities because it is the quality which guarantees the others.
Aristotle

Alexandra Jacobs takes a long look at Antonia Quirke's Choking on Marlon Brando in this coming Sunday's New York Times Book Review:

"Amazing it is, and amusing, to watch her tremulously confront cinematic demigods in person: donning a jaunty polka-dot scarf to interview the dour director Todd Solondz for a BBC documentary; botching an encounter with a stoic Jeff Bridges and self-disgustingly getting drunk afterward. And her many and varied romantic foibles, while surely painful at the time they were suffered, are exceedingly comic in retrospect. It’s about time Pauline Kael met Bridget Jones..."