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So last Friday, there was a book fair at the Provo Library. \u00a0I only heard about it the night before from Facebook, but there were almost twenty authors on the guest list, so I figured it would be a good place to go to meet other writers. \u00a0I wasn’t mistaken!<\/p>\n
I biked up to the library just as Brandon Sanderson was walking in. \u00a0We chatted for a while, caught up on stuff since the last time I took his class. \u00a0I almost got to walk into the author’s only lounge with him, but one of the staff stopped me. \u00a0One of these days, though…one of these days!<\/p>\n
I also ran into Dan Wells, who remembered me from World Fantasy and gave me a very nice compliment: he said I was very good at approaching people, especially at conventions. \u00a0Talked about the different cons this year; according to Dan, \u00a0Dragoncon<\/a> is going to be huge this year, since Worldcon is in Australia and World Fantasy <\/a>is in Ohio. \u00a0I have a friend in Atlanta–I’ll have to look into attending that.<\/p>\n Brandon Sanderson, Clint Johnson, Mette Ivie Harrison, and J. Scott Savage did a panel on writing fantasy. \u00a0Fortunately, I had my mp3 player on me and was able to record it. \u00a0If you would like to listen to it, you can find it here:<\/p>\n Fantasy Panel, Provo Children’s Book Festival (15 May 2010)<\/a><\/p>\n Clint had some interesting advice for me after the panel; he asked about the books I’ve written and said I should submit them to YA agents\/editors as well as mainstream adult agents\/editors. \u00a0Apparently, Genesis Earth<\/em> and Mercenary Savior<\/em> could work as YA, since 1) they’re about (relatively) young protagonists having coming-of-age experiences and learning how they want to live their lives, and 2) they don’t have the sense of nostalgia that adults often have when they think about their childhood.<\/p>\n So that was the Provo Children’s Book Festival. \u00a0Let me just say, this is one of the reasons why I love Utah: the writing scene for fantasy\/sf\/YA is HUGE. \u00a0Tons of writers, tons of readers, local writing events all the time–it’s great.<\/p>\n In other updates, I got a personalized rejection from Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show<\/a>!<\/em> It was a pretty long one, too. \u00a0The assistant editor said the writing was pretty good, but it felt too much like a novel. \u00a0Hehe…confession, it was<\/em> part of a novel. \u00a0But that’s awesome that he thought the writing was good!<\/p>\n Besides that, he gave a lot of suggestions as to formatting, referring me to this site<\/a> for detailed ms instructions. \u00a0I didn’t think most editors would mind Times New Roman, but if it’s an issue even for a few of them, I should probably just switch to Courier–no editor is going to fault me for using Courier.<\/p>\n Besides all that, I’m well on my way to finishing Mercenary Savior 3.0<\/em> before CONduit. \u00a0My goal right now is to finish it next Tuesday and spend Wednesday and Thursday sending it out. \u00a0After CONduit<\/a>, I plan on starting Hero in Exile <\/em>(except the name will change), and I have a TON of great ideas for it. \u00a0Funny how sometimes in order to finish a book, you need to write another one first.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"