I am off to meet the writer people...or the wizards...that sounds cooler. Wizards.

Tomorrow I will be attending the 2017 Minnesota Writing Workshop, which I talked about in a previous blog post.

While there, there are three things I want to focus on:

I am here to learn and have a hoot! #horriblepuns

1. How to pitch my work - I have sent out queries before and had some agents interested in reading partials and fulls, but so far nobody will to take the next step. What I hope to gain at the workshop is improving my pitch skills. At the event, I will be given the opportunity to pitch my novel to an agent and get some feedback. My dream is the agent will be blown away and be biting at the bit to sign me. In reality, it will be a learning experience on how to improve my pitch and potentially add the knowledge to my future query attempts. I prefer the dream, but reality ain't too bad either.
2. Meeting cool people - That is one huge benefit I hope to take advantage of: Being around other writers. I could learn a lot and make some new friends. You can never have enough writing buddies.
3. Some basic critiques - I will also be participating in a 10-page critique of my story. Now, I know that might sound weird, considering I'm querying to agents, but I see it as another way to sharpen my work and get an inside look at a professional author/editors idea. The better I can make my story, the more enjoyable it will be for all of you. Win-Win-Win. The third win is for my brother because he wants to win too.

Overall, I am super excited for tomorrow and I hope to learn so much that mind explodes. Obviously not literally or it may take another two or three years for Minnesota to hold another Writer's Digest Writing Workshop.

Weekend in Emily, MN - Emily Day's Event

Last week was a whirlwind of work and summer fun, but I don’t think people want to hear about grant writing (unless you do, just let me know in the comments). For fun, I spent the weekend at my family’s cabin to celebrate Emily Day’s. Emily is a small city in Northern Minnesota that holds an annual celebration that includes a parade, delicious food vendors (GYROS!), artisans, and is capped off with fireworks. The parade is the staple of the event, but I was more interested in the food and artisans.

They had 12-foot tables lined with hats, knives, and other random knick knacks. It had an old-time redneck vibe, but it was really fun to just see all it had to offer. The biggest surprise at the event was a video game re-seller that had the full spectrum of games available from SNES to Xbox One. I did some snooping and found the game, Blitz, which was quite a nostalgia moment for me. What stood out the most at the Emily Day’s event was a self-published author by the name of M.E. Gryffon. What I found odd was she was dressed in a black Chinese dress, which I had only seen worn by Fanny Wong in Shanghai Knights. I took some time to chat with her and decided to support a fellow author. I bought her novel, "Rune of the Guardian" for only $10.

I haven’t read the book yet, but I am interested to see if the novel is a diamond in the rough instead of a just…rough. I looked around online to see if the writer had a website or something and all I could find was a single Goodreads review of three stars. She just launched the book, so I am going to take the review as a potentially positive sign and give it a shot.

Overall, the weekend was a success and I was able to get a lot of uninterrupted writing done. I was away from my normal writing laptop, so I started on a nerdy teen romance short story that I hope to have ready for everyone to read in the monthly newsletter.

If you are interested in reading it, sign-up for the newsletter, otherwise I will post it to the website a few weeks later. -J.J.