Oregon Christian Writers Conference

Black event, epiphany, change, and HEA these are all things I learned about last week from Susan May Warren at the Oregon Christian Writers conference. Yes my stories had them, but I didn't know their names. Are my novels a Why/Why not? story or a Why not/Why story? I know that now too. I learned more from Susie's class than any other I've ever taken. My head is spinning. I purchase Cd's from several of the workshops I was not able to attend. The days were just packed with so many workshop choices. I should have bought Susie Warren's Cd's even though I was in her class. I need to learn her lessons inside and out! The picture above is me with Susan May Warren and all her books that I purchased.

Below I am posing with author and agent, Karen Ball. A lot of her novels include a rescue dog. I purchased one on them on CD for my upcoming drive to Disneyland.

Below are the authors of two of my very favorite books. On the right is Christina Berry Tarabochia, who wrote Familiar Stranger—loved it!!!!! And on the left is Roseanna White, author of A Stray Drop of Blood, also loved that one!!!! They're holding Roseanna's book, Jewell of Persia that I bought. Notice Roseanna's bracelet matches the one displayed on the back of her book, of which she has a whole interesting story. Perhaps she will post about that sometime on her blog.

And here I am with Roseanna and her two books. One I brought with me for her to sign and the other, I purchased there....autographed of course.

What a fun and great week. I met some wonderful ladies, exchanging blog addresses to keep in touch. I received excellent words of encouragement from the critique class for my current WIP, as well as requests for one of my manuscripts and great advice for the other. We even had good food—the most fun I had at dinner was sitting with the sci-fi guys and a young man who published at age 19. He's now writing the 3rd book in his trilogy. Praise God for up and coming Christian writers.

I learned that the average age of a first time novelist is age 52. So I have plenty of time. Also, the average published author is not published until book 4. Nope—I'm not going to accept that one. I am looking at the author of THE HELP as inspiration there. (Will talk about her on my next post.)

OCW was wonderful this year. It was truly food for my writing soul.