Ridgecrest Diary, 22 May 2008

[Lost the entire post; trying for a second time. I guess I'll do the short version.]

I intended to post every day of the writers conference; however, our Internet service was slow when available and often wasn't available.

The conference ended today with our last class, a closing assembly, and lunch. Ridgecrest is practically a ghost town right now. Perhaps it was just as well I wasn't able to get on-line. On Monday the usual writers conference letdown got to me, when once again I was reminded of the extreme difficulty of breaking in as a published writer. I don't know why I should think that breaking into this new field should be easy. I'd be upset if it were suddenly easy to break into engineering with minimal effort. Still, I had to work through those down feelings, which I did over the next couple of the days.

A few conference highlights:

- the class on novel plotting with Ron and Janet Benrey, husband and wife novelists.
- several other classes that proved most worthwhile.
- my meeting with an editor who asked for proposals on my two Bible/small group study guides.
- my meeting with another editor who asked for a proposal on my Bible study.
- my meeting with an agent who asked for a proposal on my baseball novel and for summaries of the series of "cozy" mysteries I'm planning as my next project.
- my meeting with another agent who has had my Biblical-era novel manuscript since November, and gave me hope for it.
- unplanned meetings at the coffee shop with other writers.
- late evenings in the lobby with faculty and other writers, discussing writerly things.
- meals, lines, pre-class sessions, and walking between buildings with other writers, with chances to discuss what we all are writing.

Lynda and I decided to spend tonight here. We'll take a couple to the airport in the morning, then do the tourist thing in Asheville for a couple of hours, then head west. It's going to be a couple of busy weeks.