{"id":196,"date":"2014-10-29T15:15:52","date_gmt":"2014-10-29T15:15:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/?p=196"},"modified":"2014-10-29T15:41:38","modified_gmt":"2014-10-29T15:41:38","slug":"writing-tips-from-the-scbwi-wi-fall-retreat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/writing-tips-from-the-scbwi-wi-fall-retreat\/","title":{"rendered":"Writing Tips from the SCBWI-WI Fall Retreat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/theme-workshop.jpg\" rel=\"colorbox\" class=\"colorbox\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-197\" src=\"http:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/theme-workshop-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"theme workshop\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/theme-workshop-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/theme-workshop-600x450.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/10\/theme-workshop.jpg 960w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>What an amazing weekend we had at the annual <a href=\"http:\/\/wisconsin.scbwi.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">SCBWI-WI<\/a> Fall Retreat in Oconomowoc. &#8220;Risks and Rewards&#8221; was the theme of the conference, which graced attendees with a lot of inspiration, advice and stories. Speaking of risks, I took a big one by presenting on Theme: Writing Books that Matter. That&#8217;s me on the left with my amazing attendees. They were awesome!<\/p>\n<p>If you&#8217;ve never attended a writing conference, I highly recommend that you do&#8211;and doubly recommend that you go to one organized by the SCBWI. They really know how to do it.<\/p>\n<h5>Here are a few of my favorite tips and quotes from the weekend.<\/h5>\n<p><strong>&#8220;Feel the fear and do it anyway.&#8221;<\/strong> &#8211; Author\/illustrator\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.davidlarochelle.net\/\" target=\"_blank\">David LaRochelle&#8217;s<\/a> life advice he got from a book title<\/p>\n<p><strong>Writing tips from author <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scbartoletti.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Susan Campbell Bartoletti<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;It takes at least three senses to breathe a scene to life.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;If a character is happy in the beginning of a scene, and happy at the end, nothing has happened.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Retype your entire manuscript at least once.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;You cannot tinker a story into working.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Revision problems:<\/strong> &#8220;Look for seeds of solutions in the story.&#8221; &#8211; Editor Andrea Tompa, Candlewick<\/p>\n<p><strong>Really resonated with me:<\/strong> &#8220;Fiction can be emotionally autobiographical without being actually biographical.&#8221; &#8211; Author <a href=\"http:\/\/keklamagoon.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Kekla Magoon<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Writers need to tell themselves everyday that, <strong>&#8220;This is my priority.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Try Susan Campbell Bartoletti&#8217;s writing method:\u00a0<\/strong>45 minute writing sprints followed by 15 minutes of doing no reading whatsoever. (Think: laundry, walks, cleaning, etc.) Leave email and social media for later. Like she said: &#8220;When I write an email, I feel like I&#8217;ve done my writing for the day.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Advice from the faculty panel:<\/strong> Find out who is working on your book and send them flowers.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What an amazing weekend we had at the annual SCBWI-WI Fall Retreat in Oconomowoc. &#8220;Risks and Rewards&#8221; was the theme of the conference, which graced attendees with a lot of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-read-p\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/writing-tips-from-the-scbwi-wi-fall-retreat\/\" class=\"post-read-more\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202,"href":"https:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196\/revisions\/202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.melissagorzelanczyk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}