Notes from the NESCBWI Conference - Saturday stuff
Saturday morning, the day started with a keynote speech from Sharon Creech, "The Words We Choose to Say," which was uplifting and inspiring, just as you'd expect. And poetry-related, too, since she referenced both Robert Frost's "The Pasture" and Walter Dean Myers's "Love That Boy" as inspiration for her marvelous Love That Dog. She noted that if a word or a poem or a phrase resonates for you, then it means that something in your head or your heart or your soul responds to it - specifically, she was speaking about how sometimes one of those things pops into her head and sticks with her, and she has learned not to ignore them. Good advice, I think.
I next attended a two-hour intensive. "Real Revision" with my friend Kate Messner really got me kick-started in thinking about revising a chapter book I've drafted that needs a bit more work. Specifically, it needs to resonate just a bit more, and I believe I've figured out what it needs, even if I haven't undertaken a(nother) round of revisions just yet. Imagine my surprise when my name was on two of Kate's slides - turns out one of her favorite writing prompts to jump-start revision comes from a poetry workshop I gave at NESCBWI a few years back, which Kate wrote down as "write a metaphor-poem describing one of your characters, in another character's voice." Sweet!
Lunch was delicious, though I left before dessert turned up in order to rest (as mentioned in my earlier post). I was happy to see my friend Jo Knowles get her Crystal Kite Award for Pearl before I ducked out, though. SO well-deserved. Here's a photo of Jo and me at dinner on Saturday:
In the afternoon, I went to my friend Linda Urban's session on "The Power of Point of View", which owes its title to a book by Alicia Rasley. Linda noted that her primary motivating factor for deciding what point of view to use is who the main character is, and what the theme is. It was a very thoughtful workshop, and raised great points to consider in future work.
I next attended a two-hour intensive. "Real Revision" with my friend Kate Messner really got me kick-started in thinking about revising a chapter book I've drafted that needs a bit more work. Specifically, it needs to resonate just a bit more, and I believe I've figured out what it needs, even if I haven't undertaken a(nother) round of revisions just yet. Imagine my surprise when my name was on two of Kate's slides - turns out one of her favorite writing prompts to jump-start revision comes from a poetry workshop I gave at NESCBWI a few years back, which Kate wrote down as "write a metaphor-poem describing one of your characters, in another character's voice." Sweet!
Lunch was delicious, though I left before dessert turned up in order to rest (as mentioned in my earlier post). I was happy to see my friend Jo Knowles get her Crystal Kite Award for Pearl before I ducked out, though. SO well-deserved. Here's a photo of Jo and me at dinner on Saturday:
In the afternoon, I went to my friend Linda Urban's session on "The Power of Point of View", which owes its title to a book by Alicia Rasley. Linda noted that her primary motivating factor for deciding what point of view to use is who the main character is, and what the theme is. It was a very thoughtful workshop, and raised great points to consider in future work.