And so to Sunday.... It was a later start to the event so I had a very slow start to the morning, pottering around my room, enjoying the shower one more time, before packing up my bags and staggering back to the car to stash it away.... it had grown somewhat since I arrived, not through book purchases, but with swag... lots and lots of swag... I have an enormous amount of pens, notebooks, badges, bookmarks and some basil seeds... as well as chocolate, a memory stick full of goodies, some postcards, tea, coffees, more sweeties... you get the picture :)
I headed to the foyer of the events suite for coffee and had a good natter with a couple of authors about research and historical accuracy, before we went through for the first session on avoiding your mid-novel crisis, which gave some very useful techniques for getting your writing mojo back when it's upped and left midway through a chapter.
After more coffee I headed to the "It's not all sex scenes" panel on YA and NA books. The panelists were very enthusiastic, but I was slightly concerned that they didn't actually seem to know the difference between YA and NA... yeah, I should have put my hand up and said something, but I really don't like to draw attention to myself. This was probably the only panel I was slightly disappointed with, though from audience participation I was probably the only one.
The next panel, on contracts, was really excellent, pointing out some important definitions that anyone signing a contract for the first time really should know.. it also dealt with how to negotiate your contract and the relationship between publisher and author.
After another excellent buffet lunch we had the second keynote speech, this time from Aleks Voinov, an I have to say it was one of the best, most inclusive and common sense speech I've heard. Seriously, the upshot was, don't apologise for what you write or read, be who you are, welcome diversity and have fun....okay so that's like the most summarised summary that you'll probably get, but it was a wise and also humourous speech.
And that just left the feedback and planning session with a view to next year. As the meet wound down and people started to depart it was quite sad... the next Meet won't be till September 2015, with the exact dates and venue still to be decided.
I headed off about 5 pm and was home just under three hours later. My dogs were incredibly pleased to see me - though Hope had had a bit of a hissy fit about being left and had managed to break the baby gate that goes over the kitchen door ... literally... it is off it's hinges and I need a new one..... The cats have yet to forgive me and are being very demanding!
Finally, I mentioned that the internet for all it's vastness is a very small world. I've often wondered if my reading worlds will ever collide and on Sunday they did. As I introduced myself to a fantasy author whose work I really like, another author mentioned that she'd spoken to both of us before about Girls Own books we'd read when we were younger (and not that much younger).... In the course of nattering... it turns out that I know this author's mother, who is a member of the same Girls Own website as I am and we share a lot of non M/M reading twitter followers :)
I also discovered two other people from my home town... one of whom works with my sister's partner :) I've got instructions to get in touch to meet up from coffee from them, and from another friend not a million miles away in Leeds.
All in all I had a fantastic time, and I can't wait for next year!
No comments:
Post a Comment