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Karina's Ranting about that Writers Conference
Posted by KarinaFabian on Tuesday, May 13, 2008 (12:58:33) (123 reads)
Sorry this is late; Karina Fabian (our case transcriber) has been raving about that Catholic Writers' Conference Online she helped organize. It ended Friday. She's as bad as a High Elf! So I'm giving her the blog today--and trust me, this is the short version! BTW-the e-book is for sale to anyone, so if you missed it, feel free to contact her to order a copy ($5 for PDF, $10 for CD).
What a terrific conference! Well beyond my expectations. First, we had 300 people register--half again the goal we'd set. We had two dozen presenters with about 40 workshops or chats in all covering everything from plotting out your story to working with your editor to marketing your book. Here were a few of my favorites:
Mark Shea kicked things off with a wonderful discussion on How Faith Connects Everything. I moderated this one, and it got a little out of hand from the moderating POV because opinions and ideas just flew. However, Mark summed it up this way: "It is our right and proper mission, not to spend all our time fussing about the arrangements of the sanctuary, but bringing Christ into the world. The last words of the Mass, properly translated, are "Go! You are sent" That's how I see my work as a writer."
Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff's chats on plot and showing characterization had excellent advice and practical examples. The day after the conference, I whipped out a short story and the entire time, I kept "hearing" her remind me about what we'd learned.
"Writing with Faith and Without Bias" was another fun and practical chat. Woodeene Koenig-Bricker has a nice direct style and a fun way of putting things. "(When interviewing someone whose religious beliefs are radically different from mine) At times I've approached it as I would feeding time for the reptiles at the zoo. 'My my, that snake just ate a live rat. Well, isn't that interesting?' Not, "Oh gag, I could never eat a rat.'"
I could rave about all the chats, but let's move on to forums before Vern decides to eat me.
Forums didn't work as well as chats this time. I think we didn't give a good enough focus on how they could best be used, so some folks didn't know how to handle them. However, a few were excellent with a lot of participation and attendees getting some one-on-one coaching from a person experienced in the field.
I think Branding and Marketing was a big hit, especially considering that Audrey Shaffer slid into the schedule at the last minute. (Thanks, Audrey!) The Daily Devotional workshop with Patricia Punt was also very well-received. (I'm betting the DD magazines are going to love some of the submissions they receive in the coming months.)
I personally got a lot out of Michelle Buckman's The Right Details and Sylvia Dorham's Character and Dialog. I love forum workshops with writing exercises. It gives my brain a chance to twist them into my genre. (Sylvia asked us to do dialog between two characters we'd made--with them seeing a tornado. My characters were a computer hacker and his confessor for a cyberpunk story I want to write. Cyberpunk with a Tornado!" OO! And I just came up with the next scene! See why these workshops are so great?)
Then of course, there were the pitch sessions. You know how some writers conferences arrange for folks to spend 10 minutes with an editor to pitch their work? We re-created it in cyberspace! Terry Burns, agent, graciously critiqued query letters in his forum workshop and asked to see proposals on some.
Pauline Press's pitch session relied on us having two chat rooms--one where Sr. Maria Grace Dateno, Sr. Christina Wegendt and Diane Lynch would chat privately with the pitcher and one where folks hung out until it was their turn. So doesn't it figure that that was the ONE TIME the website went down, trapping us in the single chat room? While Ann made a desperate call to the host provider to get it straightened out, I opened up the chat room on the website and directed people there. People were already nervous, then to have to deal with tech errors and website hopping--plus a few had problems with the copy and paste function! One pitcher joked about resisting the urge to throw up on her keyboard. But for all that, it went amazing well, with most of the pitchers invited to send on the manuscript or proposal. Those that didn't get invited simply had books that didn't fit Pauline Books and Media's needs.
I think about 75 percent of the attendees were not used to the chat room/forum environment, and the website had such a problem with cookies that we had to wonder if it was on a diet. However, overall, the conference was a huge success and we're looking forward to doing it next year.
10 responses to the cop who ate marijuana brownies
Posted by KarinaFabian on Tuesday, May 06, 2008 (11:43:19) (126 reads)
Look at the post about working at 911 before you read this. Here are the replies I'd be tempted to say to the cop who got high on marijuana brownies and called 911. Now you can see why I would not be hired.
1. I'll start talking really slow one minute, really fast the next.
2. "If you see a white light, don't walk toward it."
3. "We've dispatched a priest to administer Last rites..."
4. "You know, you're the seventh caller who's told me about this time thing. Maybe it's not the brownies!"
5. "Help is on the way. In the meantime, do not operate any heavy machinery."
6. "We've dispatched someone. It may take a while. Longer while for you than me, apparently."
7. "How many fingers am I holding up?"
8. "You do realize you're talking to a dragon, right?"
9. "We need to reset your internal clock. I want you to go to the Start menu..."
10. "That's what you get for not sharing"
Can I work at 911?
Posted by KarinaFabian on Thursday, May 01, 2008 (10:33:31) (111 reads)
Maybe when I get bored with being a private investigator, I'll go work at 911. It's worthwhile work. Besides, every now and then I might get a call like this:
Then again, they might fire me for messing with the guy's mind while he waits for "help" to arrive.
Catholic Writers Conference Online Registration Ends Friday
Posted by KarinaFabian on Wednesday, April 23, 2008 (09:52:22) (304 reads)
Posting this for Karina. I might make an appearance. We'll see.
Just a reminder that the Catholic Writers Conference Online registration ends FRIDAY! This is a free conference, with speakers from all areas of Catholic publishing--from the writer to the publisher--covering all areas of writing--from idea generation to query to contract and beyond. Sign up at http://conference.catholicwritersguild.org.
See More Information for a list of presenters.
My Lair, now that Grace is here
Posted by KarinaFabian on Monday, April 21, 2008 (19:52:15) (180 reads)
OK. Kid's home with his parents, a little wiser in the ways of Faerie. Hope they ground him until graduation.
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yeah, my lair.
I'm not going to say I was perfectly content in my overcrowded warehouse of a lair or I'll have to go to Confession. Fr. Rich is out of town and it always makes the visiting priests nervous when I enter the Confessional, so let's just say I'd been in worse. I had a nice straight line from my bed and desk to the door--very dramatic for whatever poor sod was seeking my help--and otherwise, I left stuff alone. Every now and then, the church would need something or would be having a garage sale and someone would try to tackle the inventory and find some prize junk, but frankly, the previous owner wasn't all that hot with the books and no one really wanted to devote much time to it. Fine with me. It's the closest thing to treasure I've had in eight centuries. I think I deserve the right to maintain the illusion that it's more than Stuffy-Bear knock-offs and Looney Tunes glasses.
Then circumstances--"circumstances" being a case involving an ancient rite set to rock music and a Cthulhu wannabe--brought us together. Grace decided to stick around and she needed a place to stay.
What can I say? I had room.
Amazing how folks came out of the woodwork to help. Some of her sisters came across the Gap to help clear and clean. The Confirmation class, under the supervision of a couple of carpenters who attend our parish, tore down some of the second level and build walls to make a bedroom, a shower (already had a toilet), and to build up the kitchen. We moved up to the office in the reception area; it's crowded, but better suited to our partnership. Besides, Grace needed the back corner for her workshop; a small, roofed room inside our lair, tucked into the corner. Since no one would have to enter our area now, I moved my bed up closer to Grace's bedroom, which occupied a part of a second-floor. It's narrow and small, but it has a window--not that the view is much, and her harp sits in the small room outside the bedroom. I'll say one thing for the place; it's got surprisingly good acoustics, and Grace magicked them even better.
Another interesting thing is how much useful stuff we found in the hodge-podge of my treasure. Lumber, most of the piping and tiles for the shower; a nice set of dishes for the kitchen--forget Looney Toons; we found Lord of the Rings glasses--and other odds and ends. With some trips to Goodwill and the lumber store, and we managed to make a pretty nice home.
That's enough for now--if you want to know more, ask.
Lair Story Delayed--Funny Link Instead
Posted by KarinaFabian on Thursday, April 17, 2008 (16:35:30) (95 reads)
Had planned to blog about how Grace changed my lair, but we have to go rescue some Mundane kid from the Faerie. Thought the fact that a 16-year-old would be considered an adult there was a good excuse to go party. Naturally, he didn't think that his actions would get regarded as those of an adult as well.
The human authorities in Mundane and Faerie have protocols for handling this sort of thing, but--yay, us!--this kid decided to get into creative trouble. Something about too much ale and nymphatic wiles, a pocket knife and carving some initials into a tree. Take a hint from me: Not Romantic.
Anyway, I'll blog about Grace Monday. In the meantime, thought you'd get a giggle out of this. I know I'd buy it--but I'm a dragon.
My Lair
Posted by KarinaFabian on Monday, April 14, 2008 (15:58:13) (108 reads)
OK. *Yawn* I'm up. I'll tell you about my house, then maybe I'll catch another nap. Digesting's hard work, you know.
The first thing you ought to know is that the property itself was willed to the parish right about the time Duke Galen played his little joke condemning me to stay here for good. It's situated in a run-down, low-income area between the railroad tracks and the river. The area's improving now, partly because I'm here and partly because Daniel Flint has started to replace the falling-apart hovels with small but reasonable housing. Got to give him credit, he's a crotchety old geezer, but he comes through on his promises.
Anyway, the parish inherited it, and Fr. Rich took me to check it out and get my opinion. I took to the air and had a look. The general shape of the thing was like a Tetris piece--a long, wide main area with a small square poking out the top and a larger one out the right side. Chain-link fence with concertina wire across the top, cracked sidewalk, empty dog run, trash in the yard, graffiti on the walls, which were half stucco and half dirty brick. I was underwhelmed. And that was just the outside.
Inside, you walked into a "reception" area--and I use that term lightly--with an office/kitchenette to the left and a closet to the right. Wood double-doors with tiny windows--like you see in a restaurant--led to the main warehouse.
Along the right wall ran a narrow second level built with 2 x 4s and paneling Rich said was popular thirty years ago. At the front corner the level widened to a squarish office with half-walls. Guess the supervisor oversaw operations from there while he had his lunch and did paperwork. On the right were bathrooms--men and women. No shower and barely enough room for me if I were desperate. The rest of the cavernous main area was filled with boxes piled on metal or homemade wood shelves. I looked up: The ceiling, corrugated steel, was old, but sound, with steel struts holding it in place and large ducts ending in round vents to heat the place.
Double doors on the right led to a smaller warehouse with no heating. To the back, another small pop-out with a tiny office and another second level and a garage door. Must have been for loading. The guy who died owned some kind of eBay operation that was more focused on deals than any particular merchandise. I didn't smell anything spoiling, but glancing at the boxes revealed a wide range of products, many of which I still hadn't heard of.
I told Fr. Rich it was a dump.
Then he said it could be my dump if I wanted it.
Funny, how that changes your perspective.
You know, once we cleared most of the stuff out of the main area and cleaned it up some, it wasn't half-bad. We even found a stack of memory foam pads that became my bed, which we put directly under one of the vents to the back of the warehouse, desk, a couple of computers, some modular furniture... That guy was into everything. Now I'm surrounded by everything--mostly shoved into the loading bay and cold warehouse, and along the walls. I sold or donated most of the shelves as we've cleared them out, but otherwise I left the stuff alone. It was the closest thing to having treasure I'd experienced in centuries.
That's how I lived for a few years until Grace came along, but that's another story.
Tell you more Thursday.
One of my earliest cases made it to this anthology. Order More Info
About Karina Fabian
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