Lots and lots of words

I've been getting behind on my Business of Writing updates, so I'm going to try and catch up now.

I mentioned earlier about a conference I went to, and I should elaborate on that. It was a literary conference, comprised of multiple panels. Unfortunately, I missed the first one, because it was located a fair distance away, and my friend was driving me, so I didn't want to ask her to wake up super early to get me out there. The first panel that I was present for was rather dry. Everyone was reading essays, or papers, or sections from books. They were all accounts of epistolary stories, or histories. The subjects were rather interesting, but I have to admit that I zoned out quite a bit during the second one, and can barely remember what it was about. The third one from that panel was the most interesting, because it was about a certain sweater that is made by a First Nation group, and how it was incorrectly recreated without permission from the group, for the Olympics.

It was a good presentation to end that panel on, because after lunch, the next panel was by three First Nations presenters. And they were all so interesting, because they were talking to the audience, not reading off a piece of paper. They were telling personal stories, not research. There was even some singing and rapping. It was by far the most interesting panel that I was able to attend that day.

Of course, that's not saying much, considering I had to leave after that one. My friend had to be home by 4:30, and it was an hour drive back to her house, so we left at 3. I heard the next panel had to do with food, so I really regret not staying for that one, but there wasn't much I could do.

After that, we started learning about grants and CVs (Curriculum vites? I can't spell it). The grants weren't too challenging, we just had to go into more detail about our porject. And not just the plot synopsis, but details that we probably never really thought about until now, at least for me. The point of a grant is to convince a council to give you money to work on a project. We were told to talk about why we're writing out project, why it's important to ourselves and the community. Why people have to read it, and why it has to be written. Unfortunately, as a speculative fiction writer, I write for fun. Although I try to include deeper meaning into my work, it's generally for fun. I like to write what I like to read, and what I read is fantasy, dragons, magic, knights, kings, queens, grand wars and the fall of kingdoms. Now this really isn't important. It's not a tragic history of my life, and how I became the person I am today through great struggle and overcoming challenges.

So although I found writing about my project was fairly easy, I don't feel like it'll be earning me grant money any time soon... or ever.

It's the CV that got me, and I'm pretty sure most other people, worried and rather self conscious. A CV is basically a writing resume. It includes all schooling, publications, awards and interests. Just to get mine to a full page, I had to include a suspicious amount of line breaks and some small things that otherwise would not be on a regular CV, such as magazines I've submitted to (but not been accepted in). I thought my two little publications in my old colleges anthology were pretty good... Until I looked at some other CVs just from my class. I really need to get my butt in gear and get more actual publications.

Today we had a presentation on reviews. This was particularly interesting to me, since I have actually done several reviews on this blog. None of them have been for money, or even for the public, so I never considered them to really matter. I was doing them for whoever might stumble upon them, or maybe for any google searches. In fact, if I look at my traffic sources, I have a few people that found this blog because of a review I did on "A Murderous Procession". It's been a while since I've done a review, but I have read several books since my last one, so I should get back to them. Maybe I'll do one on Tuesday.

And now what I have planned for the next few weeks. I mentioned Fan Expo a few posts ago. I am definitely going to this. Just for one day, since ticket prices start getting expensive for more than one day, and my poor boyfriend can't afford much. And since I don't have much time to go out and do things, what with school and work, I'm hoping to get a lot of points for my List through online research and sharing. I've found a great resource through Reddit, which has a lot of publishes authors and editors, who constantly posts links to other websites that help to improve writing, or help to get published. It also constantly has AMAs (Ask Me Anything), with writers, editors, publishers and so on. While doing my research on Brandon Sanderson, I realized these are far more than just questions on the author's books or home life, but also on their jobs, and how they deal with the problems that all writers, or editors or publishers, face.

So that was a big update, sorry. I feel like I owed it, after all the other days I've missed. I'll try to update more on schedule from now on!