Books From the Beginning to the End

Can I just interupt all of this live blogging from the conference to say it is COLD here! Like seriously.  Two days ago it was summer, and now it's frosty! I think after this afternoon we're going to see the end of Cute-Frankie-Wear and switch into OMG-its-cold-I-just-want-to-live-wear!

But anyway, my body tempterature aside, it's time for another session with awesome author Judy Schachner.

This is a two part session, but I'll be covering the first part, because after I leave here, I'm going to a talk on the internet with super agent Elana Roth. So look out for that pretty soon.

BTW Judy is one of the silliest people.

First bit of advice, lying about something isn't really lying, but giving yourself a challenge. Judy once lied to an editor about being able to write. She lied. But then she accepted the challenge and now she can.

Judy has a ball of mistakes aka a crap ball of her bad writing.

Before writing, you have to get yourself really psyched and excited to work on your project. A lot of people like to listen to music. Or they clean first to get in the mindset or feeling of like...OK--everything's done, time to write, or time to draw, time to create!

Judy's talking about visiting schools now and how she collects "junk." Each thing she found as a little girl, she felt like was a treasure and would create stories around the object. There are all of these ways of creating and fertlizing your ideas and many times in school, these concepts/ideas/etc are squashed. Not every teacher knows how to foster this sort of creativity, so school visits are important--not to mention a great way to supplement your income as a writer.

So Judt has this amazing suitcase of stuff, stuffed animals, vintage toys, wind up toys, monkey arms, witch hand, boots, giant pencils, an elephant with backwards ears.

There's a tiny box going around with a super tiny mouse inside... dead...Im scared to look.

Apparently the rest of the conference goers are far braver than I am.

Now this is really cool--Judy will make little boxes that are symbolic of who/what she's writing about. I've done this sort of thing before--collecting pictures from magazines of actors who look like your characters, putting together a necklace your main character would like.

My MC is really into vintage clothing and anything that looks Victorian. So I kind of can't resist when I see Victorian styled necklaces, especially ones with roses, doves, locks and keys. I really love this idea of putting together a treasure box for your characters of things they like or that represent them as people or represent their journey.

New tidbit--when writing your characters you have to get into their soul. Many writers are also very visual people, so it helps to have something visual there, something to look at that brings you into your story.

Judy wishes kids weren't so obsessed or worried about having to write the perfect paper. They'd learn so much more if they could create and explore and have the courage to try something new.

This is important for writers--sometimes we get so obsessed with writing the perfect words, we write nothing, so don't be afraid to suck.

Very important that we don't allow socialization scare the creativity out of us.

Judy is such a free, spirited person, it's really neat seeing all of the things that inspire her to write books and how she physically puts her ideas together before creating her stories.

Ok, off to another session!