Earlier this month I was lucky enough to attend Romance Writers of America's National Conference in New York City. I met up with some old friends, made a few new ones, got some great tips about writing and discovered a lot of new authors.
I think the workshops that impacted me the most were Laura Joh Rowland's "Twenty Questions to Answer Before writing 'The End'" and Candace Haven's workshop "How to Write Your First Draft in Two Weeks". I am one chapter away from finishing a manuscript I started a long time ago. I had abandoned this manuscript in favor of other project but one day figured out how to solve a plot issue. I pulled it out of my heap last month and started working on it, trying to get close to finishing the first draft before RWA. It was an interesting experience. I have no idea how good it is, but I learned a lot from the process. I was interested to learn that many of the techniques Candace Havens presented were ones I used to just get that draft finished. I wasn't on a two week regimen but I now have some more refined tools in my writers kit for the next first draft. The next step is, of course, revision hell. After the length of time it took for this draft I'm actually looking forward to revision. Rowland's workshop gave me a chance to sharpen my thinking about revision at a time I really need it. I bought the CD of the conference so I'm looking forward to listening to all the other great workshops I wasn't able to attend.
The week following the conference was spent touring New York and taking a lot of photos. I brought my Petri 1.9 rangefinder and a load of film. I shot at least 6 rolls which is not bad considering I also used a small digital camera to shoot lots of material for my Estello Project. As usual, it was a lot of fun to shoot Estello and it was interesting to see how many people were curious about him. I had been doing more Estello stuff on Facebook, than the blog. Blogger doesn't work as well with Facebook as Wordpress but I'm loathe to move to the other platform.
I managed to see the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met, see fireworks over the Hudson River on the 4th of July, see the Brooklyn Bridge, the Public Library on 5th, Bryant Park, Coney Island, Hoboken, the World Trade Centre rebuilding, DC Comics, New York Botanical Gardens, City Hall, Grand Central Station. I ate hot-dogs, pizza slices and drank lots of coffee. I also saw fireflies in the graveyard of Trinity Church one night. A trip to Zabars and B and H Photo really polished the stay.
I leave New York tomorrow for another week in Calgary before I return to Tokyo. The raw-creative phase continues in Calgary. I have plans to go to Brooks and Drumheller to shoot photos of the Badlands or to do to Banff to photograph the mountains and do some research. Both are great options and it pains me I won't be able to do both.
The last month has been amazing and I'm grateful to have all the opportunities to write and photograph. It's perfect that all this creative work will need extensive editing and formatting because it gives me the perfect excuse to sit in an air-conditioned room and escape the Tokyo summer humidity.
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