Have spent the weekend at a conference for writers.
It was actually for romance writers, but since it was at a hotel just round the corner from my house, and I’ve never written any sort of book in any genre, I thought it would be a good start. And so it was.
I had thought the process went something like this: you write your book, and then you find someone to publish it. Of course I suspected that there was going to be more to it, but I thought the publishing side would be more of a mystery. But I had completely overestimated my level of knowledge of the book writing process. Even after decades of reading thousands of novels, I didn’t even know what constitutes a plot! Apparently any story is about a character who is pursuing some compelling desire and faces seemingly insurmountable obstacles to accomplish the goal. Plot structure itself is even more prescribed. There was a presentation on converting your book to a screenplay that is going to make it much more interesting to watch movies or TV from now on. They even had a psychologist who explained attachment theory as it pertains to great characterisation. Amazing. Of course I was thinking of myself and my family (and even Goofy) the whole time she was describing these psychological patterns that begin in childhood.
By the time it came to discussing the nuts and bolts of how you actually sit down and write, I was beginning to lose interest as it was clear that you have to be absolutely committed if you want to write something that’s going to get published. It’s not something for the dabbler – there are hundreds of hours of work in the process. I didn’t even stay for the last few presentations on publication and marketing. Similarly, I didn’t bother networking or making friends (pretending that someone with my level of social anxiety was ever going to be able to do that unless my back was against the wall). How am I going to be ready to tackle marketing an imaginary future book, gentle reader, if I can’t even manage to get more than a handful of readers on my blog that I’ve been writing for years? Answer me that!
