Highlights of CWW17

Post date: Jun 16, 2017 1:30:56 AM

Last week I attended the Cedar Falls Christian Writers Workshop--for at least the sixth year.

I always come away feeling renewed, refreshed, and ready to write!

Here are some of my notes from last week's workshop

Music + movement = mood enhancement (lunchtime music and dancing, thanks to Jean)

The musicality of language – (I loved that phrase) – Cynthia

Readers hear the rhythm and tone of your language choices

Lots of alliteration with "P" words: procrastination or perfectionism can both be problems for writers

Editing reminders

Remember: 1 space after sentence, not two!

Don’t let critiques destroy you: learn from them.

Shorter paragraphs are more readable.

Shorter chapters help hook your readers: about 2,000 words is a good length for fiction.

Don’t use colons and semicolons in fiction. (Me: Yikes!)

Readers may take only 4-7 seconds to decide if they are going to read your book.

Readers read through a filter (CR) made up of many things that you need to acknowledge.

God doesn’t waste anything: writers write from their own history of pain. (Mary PK)

Good book: Opening up by Writing it Down, by Dr. James Pennebaker

Writing a journal helps you process grief. Great examples in C. S. Lewis and Madeleine L’Engle.

Mary kept a journal and then later used it in her book about grief.

A book proposal is a business plan for a book (Shelly).

The average book sells 500 copies.

Give your publisher what they want! Know their guidelines, genre, requirements.

Use methods from left brain & right brain to develop characters, whether it’s an Excel spreadsheet or a mind map (Jolene and Anne) (I've done both!)

Some people DO get accepted by Chicken Soup for the Soul (Susan got the news at the workshop).

It’s a SMALL world – I reconnected with an old friend, Sharon, from Grad School days at Iowa State.

Be willing to do the work! Research, write, revise, and edit.

Lots of ways to build characters beyond physical appearance (food preferences, mannerisms, way of speaking, virtues and vices, fatal flaw, and personality) (Shelly)

There are many motivations for coming to this workshop: working through grief, fulfilling a promise to tell a story of a loved one, desire to become a better writer, interest in getting published, and for those who return, the social aspect of connecting with other writers and spending time with friends is also a big draw.

My blogging Workshop was an introduction for some; however, we needed a computer lab, so everyone would have access to Blogger, but I shared my experience and strategies.

My first book display--I wrote a chapter for two books in my first year of retirement. It was exciting to set up a space on the table. The book about mothers was a great chance to use my mother's materials to write about our family and her life. The book about Midwestern authors and regionalism gave me the opportunity to write about Iowa author Ruth Suckow's life and career. While she didn't like to labeled, her writing certainly captures "the folks" who lived in Iowa's small towns and on its farms.

It was a good workshop; however, I missed the last day because it was also the weekend of the BIG Annual Meeting of the Ruth Suckow Memorial Association.

See you next year!

Last updated June 15, 2017