I've been slushed at the SCWW writers' conference - WOW

As most of you know, I'm a member of the SCWW Greenville chapter and have been very thankful for them and the feedback I get from them. The group is very good to me and to everyone it seems but sometimes folks come one time, get their feelings hurt and never return (I did cry after my first critique but then got a good jolt of reality - I went to the group to get their feedback and they gave it to me and I needed to sit back and think without letting my tender heart get in the way and so because of them, I've grown as a writer in that I can take the criticism much better now, not that I always agree with what is said but I do not have to come home and cry because they didn't like a story or whatever it is I'm reading at the time). I also did a while back link to them as being the best conference in the state or some such wording.

Well this year's conference was great. I'm glad I volunteered and was there for the activities. I'm thankful for the opportunity to meet such great presenters and attendees. My favorite session was the slushfest - which from my busy schedule was the only workshop I attended of my choice - not that I didn't enjoy being a proctor or room monitor for the other things. A slushfest is fun - you bring in two pages of a story on transparencies and the faculty put them on the overhead projector and give some general feedback on what is there - I was in the short story/flash fiction session - we had about nine to twelve people in the room and about eight of us brought transparencies to get slushed - I was slushed and loved it. Time wsa of the essence and after the first five, Anne realized we needed to speed things up, so we ended up only doing one page of the last three - which was fine - we all got read - I got a one page reading but Anne (editor and publisher of the moonshine review, based in Charlotte, NC) did read my second page (she had my hard copy) while Beth, her co-editor, was giving comments on another story. After the session when I was picking up my copies, Anne said she wanted to read the rest of the story. So I got slushed in a postive way - I am going to submit my story to her and also think about submitting "The Cellar" to her in the future. I may have been reverted from ebook publishing but Anne does not consider "ebooks" as being published and since she only takes original, unpublished works for consideration, she said she still wanted to read the story - being that I was published but not print published and the stories are all back to me, then I may have found a home for "The Tulip Kiss".

I had a critique session with Andrea Brown (big time children's/YA agent) but my copies of my story were messed up - so the critique wasn't really necessary. What I emailed to the coordinator of the critiques and snail mailed was identical but didn't get sent that way to Andrea - Andrea received Page 1 (no header on any of my pages as was sent to Katie though) - and then pages 2 through 8 as duplicates - in other words - this is what I got back with Andrea's comments - page 1 with her comments, page 2, page 2, page 3, page 3, and all the way down to page 8 - so there were 17 pages in the packet and it should have been 16 total for the story since it was a short story anyway - and I had only signed up for the standard critique session (10 pages) - but still my title and name and the page numbers should have been on the pages and there should not have been any duplicate pages. I'm not sure what happened from me sending the story to get critiqued and the printing off from the email but since that was a story that had previously been published, I wasn't too worried about the critique. I really wanted to pitch my mystery state stories idea to Andrea and get some feedback on whether or not this is a doable thing.

I got home Sunday evening and was chilling out and got to thinking of what one of the attendees said about her critique and she had signed up for an extended (30 pages) and had sent in 24 pages and only got 12 pages back - so not sure what happened to the email versions of the stories we sent or the snail mailed ones either - because I sent mine with a cover page/synopsis between the two hard copies we were to send and I checked and the emailed version and the printed version were the same and had the header as directed on the website for the critiques - Needless to say, the critiques were good for some and not good for others. I don't really know what to make of that.

Eventually, I will find homes for all my stories and maybe something will snap like it should for the state stories -

I met some fun people this past weekend at the conference and I'll definitely be there next year - but for now - see you all in the postings - E :)

Birthday and full moon

Today, okay yesterday actually considering it is now after 1 a.m. here, was my youngest child's birthday. He is an official teenager - 13 - no longer a baby. I have no babies left - wahhhhh :(

So his dad gave him some money for his birthday. I had spent all day at the school separating and checking and double and triple orders for pizza and cookie dough and making sure everyone picked up their orders. I got home about 6:30 and Benjamin comes out wanting to immediately go to dinner and spend his money. Now it's Wednesday and Hailie has gone to a friend's house to go to church with her and wants me to pick her up about 8:30. to get to town to a decent restaurant and eat and then let Benjamin do some shopping takes about two hours. Oh what to do. So we head to Anderson and on the way are discussing where to eat. We had decided on Harbor Inn which is right near the mall because that is where he wants to go to spend his money. We are almost at Harbor Inn and he looks over to the left and goes in to panic mode - IHOP, let's go to IHOP - so I had to make a quick turn, luckily at a light and no traffic (after all it is Wednesday night and most folks are in church during this time). We go to IHOP. I was thinking the crepe fest sounded good but changed my mind - had the country fried steak. So Benjamin orders a double BLT (lots of bacon made up like a club sandwich), and then decides to order an appetitizer of chicken tenders. Talk about yummy - they were so delish.

I told the waitress it was his birthday and he was an official teenager now - so after we eat she brings this humongous sundae out - with caramel and chocolate and lots of whipped cream (Benjamin has never really been a whipped cream lover - usually doesn't get it if he can avoid it) - so we both ate on the sundae.

We get to the mall at 8 p.m. I tell him he has 30 minutes to shop (he had a goal place to go and knew what he wanted). I was going to read while he was shopping, dozed off a couple of times but not anything lengthy. He pops out of the mall at 8:31 - talk about good shopping.

On the way back to get Hailie from her friend's, I look up and the moon is so full and pretty. Not a beautiful moon but a very nice one - clear sky, no clouds, no trees to obscure the view and just the brightness from the moon shining on us. So I pick on him about getting home and howling at the moon. He wasn't interested. He was more interested in the video games he had just purchased. Okay, so he wasn't howling at the moon, I did it for him while in the car at a red light. Thankfully all the windows were up and no one heard me - lol -

It was an overally enjoyable evening - spending time with my now teenage son.

heading to bed - see you all in the postings - E :)