Upcoming Writer's Conferences & Book Events

This month there is a huge release party for Brandon Mull's new series The Beyonders which comes out on Tuesday, March 15th will be held at Cottonwood High School in Murray, Utah. For further information please click on Brandon's site. Brandon always has an incredible release party and it is well worth attending. Usually there are booths for a few other authors from the same publishing firm there as well.

In April, there is a conference to be held in American Fork, Utah. For further details please go to Caleb Warnock's blog. The price is incredible and the information invaluable.

In May, the LDS Storymaker's will be hosting a conference in Salt Lake City. For further details click on their conference site. I went to this two years ago and the classes were amazing and it was absolutely brilliant to be taught by so many incredible authors.

Also in May, is the Provo Children's Book Festival will be held May 7th. The one I went to a few years ago had 30-40 children's book authors and illustrators, plus games and activities for the kids. It is an event well worth attending. There aren't many details as of yet, but keep checking the Provo Library website for details beginning in April.

Hello World

I apologize for being away so long. The last several months have been tense. I had some health issues for several months while at the same time studying for the GRE exam, and applying for grad school. It has been a crazy time. I've decided that I could use additional training in storytelling and decided to apply for the Creative Writing Masters degree at BYU. It is the same place where Brandon Sanderson, author of Warbreaker, the Mistborn Series, and the completion of the Wheel of Time novels, achieved his masters degree back in 2005. It will be some time before I learn if I have been accepted, but even if I haven't I am determined. I will apply again next year if I must, and in the meantime will continue to learn from the conferences and authors that I might.

Speaking of conferences, here is information on two upcoming conferences for February for those living in Utah (or can afford to fly here):

- Timpanogas Storyteller Festival - Feb 2-5.
- The Life The Universe and Everything - Feb 17-19.

I will do what I can to keep you posted on other conferences as I learn of them.

In the meantime, I continue to work with the critique group I lead as part of David Farland's Writing Group website. I love the critiques I'm getting from my group. They are frequently posted, with great tips on how to make my writing even tighter. I recommend that if you can find a critique group that you join one as soon as possible.

The Art of Map Making

When researching into world making for fantasy stories I came across a fascinating suggestion from someone online. They said that the best way to make a map was to take your camera out into nature and take close up pictures of tree bark, side walk stains, and various other objects. Then you take a piece of paper and trace your map from the picture that you had taken. The reasoning for this is that if you try to freehand a map (unless you are a talented artist) that you are likely to create something that looks really wrong.

So taking this into heart, my friend Stephanie and I went out on the town several years ago and walked around parks in the Kirkland, WA area to see what we could find. To our amazement the things we identified as making the best pictures for maps was....wait for it.....bird poop!!!! Ta-da!

You may think I'm nuts, but it works. We took two different pictures from our collection of bird poop and sidewalk stains and merged them together. When I tried to print it out on my computer it turned out I only had colored construction paper. So our map for the Nedaran Prophecy remained, for years, a collection of three pieces of various types of paper, stapled together to create one consistent map.

Well, this morning I finally broke down and traced over the colored map as best as I could in order to transfer it onto a white piece of paper. Its not as beautiful as being able to use the dots and pixels from the patterns of poop to show where the forests and mountain ranges are, but you still get the general idea. So for the fun of it, I now show to your the map for the Nedaran Prophecy series (as it currently stands). So my writing tip for everyone this month is to take your camera, and go out to explore nature. See what kind of map you can create from what you find. Who knows, maybe it will just work out for your story. Good Luck!