ACFW: Day 3, Part 1

I neglected to mention that I went hottubbing with a friend from Oregon last night. We were meeting near the pool, and I got there before her. Instead of getting in the tub and being too hot if she didn’t arrive for a bit, I decided to swim until she showed up. Did I mention this conference is in Denver? Didn’t take too many laps to be out of breath. I’m 100% confident it had nothing to do with me being out of shape! 😉

In fact, today I’ve had several bouts of dizziness. We’ve been warned to drink lots and lots of water to ward off altitude sickness, but one conferee was taken to the hospital after she passed out this morning. (She’s doing fine, now!)

Because of that, I’ll cover the first part of today, but leave the awards banquet post for tomorrow.

First, let me send you over to Karin Beery’s There Has to be a Beginning post for this day’s tour stop. She also has a review here.

During Susan May Warren and Rachel Hauck’s continuing ed session, I made special note of one of their principles: tell the story between the quotes. It’s how we get to know people: action and dialogue. Follow the same truths in your fiction. Don’t have boring dialogue with massive amounts of thoughts running through a character’s mind and the person she’s talking to having no idea what’s going on. That’s not interesting, unless it’s supposed to be a secretive thing. As children, how did our make believe worlds come alive? In the dialogue. Conversation is where the imagination came alive.

Love this quote from the class, too: “Adjectives suck power from your nouns.” Here’s an example they used. A “mean, cantankerous woman” is a “shrew.”

After lunch, I attended Jim Rubart’s marketing workshop where he informed us that “branding is not just the type of book you write.” Ted Dekker, for example, is a rock star. He has a rock star persona and his books have propelled him into rock star status in the writing world. That’s his brand.

Jim had a great tip. If you struggle with speaking, or want to improve, form a critique group for that purpose. Well, I don’t have time to be in another group, but I can certainly see Redeemed Writers taking a meeting to speak to and critique each other’s speeches.

Colleen Coble taught an excellent class on Building a Readership, but I’m writing an arricle about it for the ACFW ezine, so I’ll keep the info secret for now.

Only fifteen minutes later, the 100 author book signing launched. I choose a spot right by the bathroom and the bookstore. Lots of traffic!

More pictures of the day …