So, I’m back from When Words Collide 2016! It was tons of fun–definitely recommended, and I’d like to go again next year*. It was bigger than I had expected! I mean, I should have known due to the number of simultaneous panels that it was going to be big, but I was still taken aback a bit.

The conference was split between two halves of the hotel, so there was a lot of skywalking back and forth. The walking was definitely appreciated–I had this idea that I was going to get to the gym every day that I was there, and I made it twice, but that was it. So the walking was a nice way to get stretched out between panels.

I had two sessions scheduled with editors to take a look at parts of my manuscript. Both were on Friday, which was great because it didn’t leave me much time to stress out over it. The suggestion was to give each editor something different. Since I’ve really only got one manuscript on the go at the moment**, I sent Jodi McIsaac the prologue, and Meghan Masterson the beginning of Chapter One. I got really great feedback from both of them that basically confirmed my gut feeling on the manuscript–it’s reading really well overall even though there’s finetuning that’s needed (with an emphasis on removing ineffective repetition).

I went to some really neat panels and presentations. If I had to pick highlights, they would be Adam Dreece’s presentation on worldbuilding, the awesome panel about creating magic systems, and Victoria Smith’s fascinating talk on blogging. I’ll blog more about these later as I start delving into the details of what I learned and applying them to my own work.

There were a couple of unexpected things I enjoyed at WWC too! One of my friends talked me into attending Noir at the Bar, which normally I would not have done. It was so cool though! Basically we were all crammed into this room off the bar, drinking beer (or whatever) and listening to authors read sections of their noir work aloud. At the end, we got to vote for whose reading we liked the best. It was really great for me because I’m not familiar with a lot of Calgary authors, and this was a really great introduction to people and their work. It also reminded me that noir is a genre I want to get comfortable working in, so I’m going to start focusing my reading list in that direction and see if I can create some time between revisions to work on some short stories.

The live-action slushes were, again, something I wouldn’t normally have gone to. They were mostly divided out by genre. If you wanted to submit, you put the first page of your manuscript on a pile at the front of the room. The pile was shuffled, and then a reader picked a random page and started reading it to a panel of editors. If an editor hit a point where they stopped reading, they raised their hand. As soon as the majority of editors had raised their hand (or the page was finished), the reading stopped, and then there was a brief discussion on why the page had or hadn’t maintained interest. It was awesome just to see what editors were focused on–what worked, what didn’t, where the red flags were.

It was inspiring enough that I ended up putting my first page in during the High Fantasy panel. The High Fantasy panel was tough–the previous LAS I’d been to was about 50/50 on whether or not the page would be read out in full, but I don’t think there were any pages completed in full during the High Fantasy panel. They made it about halfway through my page–and even though I’ve read the prologue out loud to myself numerous times, there was still a glitch in the flow that I didn’t catch until it was read out at the LAS–and that’s when I lost everyone!*** Again, I got some really great feedback.

Overall, I’m really glad I went. It was nice to have some time by myself as an independent adult, and it felt like very responsible self-care that I chose to spend that time focused on my writing. I’m really motivated to keep continuing with my work now, and looking forward to the next opportunity to go!

Plus, I came home with a mug. What’s not to love?

*Life permitting.

**I love you, HH, but you’re eating my brain.

***I marked the spot to come back to during revisions.