I’m trying to get back in the swing of things now that WIFYR is over.  However, I got called back in to that freelance gig for a couple more weeks.  I agreed since I know it’s very close to done, but it does postpone my ability to be a full-time comic artist and author.  I will be there soon, though!  Sooooooon!

So, WIFYR.  It was great.  I saw my wonderful teachers and friends Carol Lynch Williams and Jake Parker.  I got hugs from both of them.  I like hugs.  In fact, Carol demanded I give her 80 hugs over the course of the week, so I made sure to hug her every time I saw her.  I think I only managed around 21 hugs.  I’ll do better next time!

I took a boot camp novel workshop with David Farland as the instructor.  There were ten other people in the class as well, and we critiqued the first 55 pages of all of our novels.  It was a humbling and enlightening experience.  They critiqued my stuff on the first day, and I totally thought I could handle it, and I did.  It was great.  All the verbal comments made sense and I could see the trend of what I needed to fix in my story.  However, then I got home and read the written comments.  It destroyed me.  I never thought I’d cry from being critiqued, but I did.  After reading comments from half the class I felt like I’d failed as an author.  My story seemed so very, very broken.  The next day I attended a panel on revisions and then it dawned on me that my story isn’t broken, it’s just a work in progress.  Then the day after that I read another written critique from a classmate and they understood every part of my story.  I didn’t fail.  That helped me feel a lot better.  As long as someone who knew nothing before reading it understood it, I succeeded.  Now to make it accessible to more people, after I finish this draft.

Here’s me and David Farland! He’s holding my sword. I brought it to show off the last day of class.

I also had the opportunity to practice pitching to an editor, and then to get a practice query letter critiqued by the same editor and an agent.  I received a lot of helpful input, and the editor asked me to send her my manuscript when I’m done!  EEEEEEEE!  I think that made my week.

Overall I had a great time.  I’m definitely going again next year.