About two weeks ago I googled "writing associations in North Carolina" and FINALLY hit something--the North Carolina Writer's Network (NCWN) is a nonprofit association for writers based in North Carolina and they are BUSY. Their website (NCWriters.org) is packed with all kinds of activities and help for authors, and I saw they were having a fall conference--this past weekend! 

I was too late to sign up for any masterclasses and I was too late for the conference room rate, but it was only two nights, so I didn't worry about that and booked it anyway after signing up to go. 

Charlotte is only 3.5 hours from the house, so I knew that was no problem, we just had to figure out if anyone was coming with me. Charley could take off Friday, the girls were ready to see something different, our trusty cat sitters were engaged, and so we were all set.

THE CONFERENCE

Oh my goooddddddd..... this writing conference, even only being two quick days, was so incredibly different than every other writing conference I'd ever been to, my head was exploding after the first class. 

The sessions were 90 minutes instead of just shy of an hour, and they were taught by professors and faculty from creative writing programs from local universities! WRITING TEACHERS. WHAT. 

Every other conference I've ever been to have been taught by either really popular authors (trad or indie), really successful indie authors, people who are known for the author organization systems, or those in the industry with a system or product to sell to indie authors. All of that is tremendously helpful, don't get me wrong, BUT to find a collection of teachers in one conference who are actually teaching ABOUT WRITING was magical. 

I felt like my ancient English literature degree was waking from a sleeping curse.

I had a list of things to look up in my spare moments: braided essays, the "pantoum" poetry structure, and "naive narrator." Not to mention the seven values of Buddhism, more on writing memoir, and from the one session I took from a social media entrepreneur... I had so many ideas for my own branding, I was writing that down when I should have been taking notes on what she was saying! 

The speakers and panels were amazing. Journalist turned author Tommy Tomlinson was Friday night, the Saturday morning panel was Patrice Gopo, Jay Ward, and Kimmery Martin. There was a panel on Sunday morning of agents and editors, but I have to confess I didn't pay attention to that because I will never, ever, ever even consider traditional publishing. So I used that time to get some notes together from the day before. 

My courses, for the record:
1. Objects May be Closer: Activating Story Settings, with Bryn Chancellor
2. Greater than the Sum of the Parts, with Patrice Gopo
3. Making Messes: How Character & Plot Thrive on Mistakes, with Amber Wheeler Bacon
4. We Know Your Why, Tell Your WHO, with Jennifer Moxley
​5. Write Your Values, with Misha Lazzara 

I'm busy today getting all of my notes into my Notion, but I'm trying to be better at updating this website, even though no one's coming here yet! BUT -- that okay. I am starting and getting shit down so it's here for the future, and that's all that matters. 

I also have some exercises from this weekend some of the instructors suggested and they're all amazing, so I need to get to those too. 

One thing I did get to do before the conference started was go to the MacTabby Cat Cafe!!! They had two slots available when we were there, so the girls went in the cat room to play with the 12 kittehs in there while I enjoyed my amazing latte and took photos of all of the art and cat things in the cafe. 

All of the kitties are available for adoption, and there was one young man there who had come by himself to play with the cats, just because he loves cats. He said he'd been wanting to get one for a while, and when I told him they were available for adoption, his whole attitude changed. He perked up and went and looked through the windows... then waited until he could go inside. I hope he found a friend. 

We went to Curio after, which was an awesome little juju magic bullshit store (MY FAVORITE) and I found a great little book on being a witch I didn't have by Julia Diaz: Witchery: Embrace the Witch Within, because I'm definitely needing to tap into something to get through this next year, and why not do it with some rockin' candles, herbs, delicious tea, and a new-found relationship with the natural world around me? 

Look at me, getting my ducks in a row. 

In the last month, I bought a MacBook Air and Vellum, Apple's amazing formatting software to make all the pretty, pretty books I want; I opened my business bank account, and also took out a post office box so I have a fun address to have things sent to all official-like. I have some more paperwork to do, but I'll get to it. 

I imported my first Elliot Lake novel into Vellum just to play with it and it's freaking amazing! So now I will go through all six of my novels and clean them up, fix the front and back matter to reflect my new business name, pop on new covers for the Elliot Lake series at least (I may dive into new covers for the other three too), and then figure out my republishing plan.

I'm official-official with the state of North Carolina and the federal side of things — I have an EIN and everything, and I'm also setting up my books: financial, series bibles, and then future works. Everything is spread out through my various laptops and cloud storage, so I want to clean all of that up and get everything in one place... because I have more books to write. 

I read accounts from other authors out there and it seems like the authorpreneur landscape is as still goofy as ever. You can work your ass off and never make a dime, or you can come in with three books that take off and then Netflix is calling. There doesn't seem to be an in between. But, I know plenty of authors who do this for a living and are tripping down their own paths and still sending kids to college, and so that's my goal — to find my own path to trip down. 

I'm still getting this house together, though, which is sort of slowing things down. I'm still faced with painting a few rooms, hanging ALL the art, lamps, plants, and unpacking. I really want to renovate the kitchen, but no idea when that might happen. So, one day at a time. 

Today, it's the dentist and some editing, and I want to unpack more of our art. And repotting plants that are already thriving in this house. (Hopefully, the next time we move, I will not have to give them all away, because the plan is to move, just not 3,000 miles.)

My fourth Elliot Lake book is halfway written. I want to go through the first three with an eagle eye, make any corrections before republishing, and then zoom through the fourth. That series will have new names and new covers, and I'm changing the publisher from Treetangle Publishing to Forsythia Cottage Writing & Design LLC, which is killing me, because I loved my Treetangle Publishing name and branding materials. But, life sometimes kicks you in the ass and you have to just pick up the pieces and move forward. 

And my new license plate came. It is AWESOME. 

The weather here is still atrocious, but the girls and I have been busying ourselves at the Halifax Art Studio once or twice a week, painting pottery for gifts (which is why I can't post photos), and that has helped a lot.

We also attended a fun little weekend in Halifax where they were celebrating late 1700s, focusing on the occupations of the day... we visited a little print shop, met a woodworker who was demonstrating all the hand tools of the day, an old lawyer's office, a graveyard with headstones dating back centuries (crazy to think about!), and we met some wonderful horses. Then, we were melting (and we weren't the ones wearing the multi-layered wool costumes!) so we headed to the art studio to paint for a few hours before heading home. Lunch that day was amazing pizza from Two Doors Down, one of the two restaurants in Halifax. Dee-lish. We'll definitely get that again.