Write Early, Write Often…Write Something!

Teresa Fannin, reader, writer, gardener, chocolate fan & tea drinker

Tag: SCBWI (Page 2 of 2)

Reflections: SCBWI NYC 2015

02/13/2015 /

The NYC conference is a mash-up of greeting friends, meeting new people, get-togethers with regional members and the scheduled events. I always hope there is something I can take from the presentations be they keynotes or breakouts sessions or even intensives. Last year it was Jack Gantos who stayed with me for long after the keynote was given. The organization, the dedication, the determination was so present, not because he told us about all of that, but because he SHOWED US. He had a power point of his notebook, what his desk looked like [at a private library no less–wow] and how he plotted and planned his stories. Now that I liked, process. I can do process.

I admit to not being huge on inspirational speakers. I think just about anyone can be an inspirational speaker if the topic is themselves, talking about how they got to where they were, how much it took, what made them keep on going. And I love those speakers and speeches, they just do little for me.

When we work on our regional conferences our goal is to have solid, practical, relatable notes that can be translated into the writing or art of all participants.

The NYC conference is not based on craft for the most part. It is a series of keynotes surrounding breakout sessions with agents and editors based in New York and what they are interested in. Some, like Jordan Brown gave a craft-based presentation along with submission guidelines. Others may just tell what they want, how they want it and give submission guidelines.

So, stay tuned for takeaway number one—Anthony Horowitz.

LA SCBWI WowZer!

08/12/2014 /

What I love about the international SCBWI conferences:

  • I can attend. Just attend. I can go to all the keynotes, panels, breakouts, socials and extras I want. I AM NOT IN CHARGE! And that is awesome.
  • I look for craft based presentations and wowzer! just sit and listen to keynotes.
  • THEN
  • I can also line up ‘acts’ from the big show to play in the sticks, i.e., in the Carolinas region 🙂  This is an opportunity to meet, greet, have a conversation, float an idea about an intensive or conference participation and try to get a commitment.

It’s a tricky thing, being in LA or in NYC, for that matter. There are thousands, well not really, but sometimes the red-lanyard club does seem highly ubiquitous. We talk a lot on our list, exchange ideas, complain, share problems, seek solutions and just generally give support. But, well, there is nothing like face to face to give the added boost to community building. And, we aren’t all even there. We have eighty (?) regions, international and domestic, in SCBWI and a regional team for each one.

These international conferences give time to interact with the home office staff and get to know them. This year, a lot of that interaction time went to the back end of the new website, specifically the registration program which many of us have been turning gray over. Alright, so I was already there, but you get the idea!

This year was a WowZer of a year, actually the years build and they are all WowZer years.  Meg Rosoff, who writes YA like a picture book, making every single solitary word count. Judy Schachner, an author/ illustrator, although those are such limited word choices for her. Stephen Chbosky who gave us a view of classic, Justin Chanda confirming Picture Books are not dead, and the life cycle of children book genres is circular, Aaron Becker, yes, illustrators do some of the best keynotes and even sing, and I could go on and on. And we aren’t even into the breakouts yet.

IMG_0804

Teresa Fannin, Diandra Mae & Bonnie Adamson

I had a special project this year. My sidekick was not able to travel to LA for all the right reasons, which means she was working on finishing up a books with Atheneum. #inlawithoutbonnie was the hashtag on my Facebook account. Bonnie actually went to a lot of places from the registration desk, to telling jokes with Chelsea, to conversations with agents, the illustrator social, the non-fiction social and the international social. Here’s Bonnie with Diandra Mae and me at the illustrator social. 

The opportunity to go is beyond wonderful. The red-lanyard advantage to approach industry professional [writers, illustrators, editors, agents] for the region is exciting. And, the ability to live my writing life at this conference is a gift.

 

voices

04/17/2013 /

It was a couple of years back, at the wrap-up party for the SCBWI LA conference. I was sitting at a table, poolside, with a couple of other RA’s when Richard Peck came up and asked if he could sit with us and eat his dinner. Natch, we said yes, rather enthusiastically. I mean, come on, Richard Peck! A refined, gracious, and gentle man. He told us about his new book, about a girl who texts with her friends, when she’s supposed to be driving. She dies. Not a new story. But what Richard said was interesting. He said that the girl’s voice had been in his head for months. He kept hearing her and then he started to see the action, like a play on a stage, and that when he knew he had to write it down, make a story, make a book.

I’ve had this person living in the back of my brain for a couple of years now. She’s not the main character. It’s taken me two years to find the main character, maybe even characters. As a matter of fact, I don’t start with character, I start with idea, plot, a happening. It takes me a long time to get to character. I suspect that has more to do with the way I was brought up, and the stories I read as a kid, than it does with writing. I didn’t read LOTR for Aragon, or Frodo, or even Bilbo. I read it for the grand adventure they took on. I read it for the fact that I truly believe that good will always win. Always. I read it because I think good always looks outnumbered.

Maybe that’s the reason I read a lot of Science Fiction and Fantasy, and I suppose that is the reason I continue to read fairy tales. Not not the Grimm, although I do like the TV show, Grimm. The Grimm fairy tales are more about morality and the twist. I read to find the good that wins. And, with this new voice in my head, I’m thinking that good may win, but it may not be a happy ending!

search

03/26/2013 /

Search and re-search. Or is it research? I’m working on a non-fiction project. It’s taken me years to get to it. No, literally years. Not because I was so busy, but because I had no idea how to write it, what was important, why I wanted it to be out there, other than the fact that it has stayed with me for years. I was first interested in the subject in 1961, so yes, really, years, a bunch of them.

I’ve diddled around the edges. Been interested and then forgot. When the subject came up I read. But I did not seek out information. I didn’t search or re-search or research. But then, out at SCBWI LA a couple of years back, I attended a bunch of the sessions on non-fiction. It was enlightening and exciting and I felt really really dumb. I couldn’t figure out what I knew that would be interesting in non-fiction.

I have a BA in History. I love history. When I was in fifth grade I told my parents that was what I would study in college. My problem was that history was fascinating, but the tests weren’t and so the grades didn’t really match up to the appeal of the subject. When I graduated from Pepperdine with a MBA, my Dad questioned me, I was so good at the business side, why didn’t I get my undergrad in business. Well, I thought college was supposed to be a time of exploring, thinking, learning what ever came my way. History gave me that. I could study anything, literature, science, math, business, and it was all legit. Everything has a history, right?

But the bottom line was I had veered from that path far into Fortune 500 companies. Seriously? What kid would want to know about those? So when pressed about writing a non-fiction, I was baffled. I thought I knew nothing. Both  Melissa Stewart and Alexis O’Neill told me to figure it out. And they were right. And, all the time it was right on the wall in front of my desk.

And the searching, which is just the looking for stuff, has to come before the re-searching, which is looking more closely at the stuff,  and researching, which is an orderly looking at the stuff that’s important. First I read about the part that had made me fascinated so many years ago. Then I read the really really dry academic part. Then I re-searched.

And, I’m finding that all those skills, talents and joy that I found in the fifth grade, that made me curious but not academic, are coming back. It’s really all in the search!

 

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