What I did in Greenwich - part Two

Workshops! The conference was opened by Katie Fforde and she was followed by the lovely Jan Jones with a celebration of members achievements. I love this part of the conference. As a unpublished writer I absolutely loved to hear who had made sales, got an agent, won a contest. It gave me hope that my name might be one of those read out one year. We then had a panel of members with one author representing each decade of membership from the sixties onwards. This was fun as we noted what had changed and what had remained the same.
On Saturday the first workshop I attened was Jay Dixon's Adding Colour to your novel. As someone who writes a rather sparse first draft I found this interesting especially when she discussed colour in the Middle Ages and the symbolism of colour.
Then I gave my own workshop on secondary characters.
Then it was the fabulous Kate Walker talking about conflict - a useful reminder to me on internal conflict and upping the stakes.
After lunch I played hooky for an hour and went for a wander around Greenwich so missing one of the workshops I'd planned to attend. I returned in time for Imogen Howson's talk on What Samhain are looking for. As a Samhain author I was interested to know if they were going to be interested in taking more romances at the heat level that I write at. A big factor in why I haven't sent them anything new for a long time. Immi is always a mine of information and I love working with Samhain so that was good.
Then I went to Liz Fenwick and Kate Johnson's Social Media workshop. I am very undecided about Twitter and I'm still undecided about it but at least now I know more information.
Sunday was a fab day - Two brilliant workshops.
Sarah Duncan - Mind the Gap crossing the publishing divide. Very useful tips and good practical advice as always from Sarah.
This was followed by HW Fisher Money Matters - financial advice for writers - very useful!
I wish I could have stayed longer but maybe next year...

Phew - or what I did in Greenwich part one

I'm back from Greenwich. It was a very hot weekend. I was totally convinced in the small hours of our first night there that I was going to die. Our rooms were so unbearably hot and sticky. I had so many showers I'm sure I've shed at least five layers of skin. The setting was stunning, totally fab and there is a real buzz about Greenwich itself, loved the market. This year the gala dinner was at the Trafalgar tavern on the Friday night. Gorgeous inn - olde worlde, very lovely views across the river. Unfortunately Olde Worlde meant no air con or even fans so we were as cooked as the chicken we got for the main course. What bit of food there was was quite nice but it took forever to be served. We sat down at 7.30 and it took till 10.30 before pudding reached us, in the heat. Alcohol however flowed freely so we all felt very merry but starving. So starving that our table went to Mc Donalds on the way home to sit in the air conditioning and scarf french fries. (There seemed to be a potato famine at the Trafalgar - never had a main course that was just chicken and peas before. I did however have a bean on my plate so the rest of the table were jealous)A few of us went on to the Comedy club which turned out to be an olde school type disco where several M&B authors who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent danced around there handbags till the small hours. The rest of us collapsed in the upstairs room where it was cool and there were comfy sofas.
Thankfully my workshop seemed to go okay the next day and we had some lively discussions as we dissected the character arcs of secondary and minor characters in Pride and Prejudice and looked at how they worked within the main story.
After lunch a few of us went for a wander around Greenwich market and along the river cooling down, acquiring cute dresses and tops and generally recovering from the day before. Dinner that evening was a barbecue in the courtyard. There was a lovely breeze and the barbecued food was quite pleasant but was hopeless for some of my friends who had dietary restrictions. Sadly also for me the jugs of Pimms had been contaminated with apple so after my first sip when my tongue started to swell up I decided to pass on the drinks. By now with the walking involved around the campus which was very spread out my hip had begun to rebel so a group of us retired to the stickiness of our kitchen for tea, coffee, biscuits and cake. There wasn't any pudding at the barbeque although there was a rumour that some people had found profiteroles.
We had a lovely and lively discussion on all kinds of things before finally getting some sleep.
Sunday arrived all too soon and after two fab workshops (which I'll tell you all about tomorrow)we were graced by an address by Joanna Trollope (Who was scarily and painfully thin to the point of looking seriously ill)She gave a thoughtful and intelligent speech with some provocative statements. We then had the best meal of the conference before returning home via a complicated route involving many escalators, and trains.
Jan Jones and Roger Sanderson do a fantastic job organising the conferences and this was a wonderful setting which I'm sure we'll all remember for a long time. Their hard work was much appreciated by all of us and we're looking forward to Wales in 2011