Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference

Several have asked if I had posted my experience on the blog yet. To be truthful, I was exhausted when I arrived home and my family came in on Saturday.As we say here in East Tennessee, "I was all tuckered out."

Now that I have rested, I will begin my saga of the experience at BRMCWC,that is much easier to write.

This was my first experience at a writers conference. One thing that I look back on was the organization of the whole conference. There were 385 of us there, plus Ridgecrest had other conferences going on at the same time.

We had a easy registration. I had paid in full before I got there, so that made check-in much easier. Our room was large and the bathroom nice. There were three of us who stayed in the same room. One of the ladies was in my critique group and the other was a friend of hers. They are German Baptist and did not quite dress as I did, but we had a good time. I did accuse them once of taking my make-up. It was all in fun.

There were loads of writers teaching classes and it was hard to "15 minute dating."
I was lucky to have one pre-arranged with Yvonne Lehman. I had read Yvonne's books for so many years and liked them immensely. She was very professional during the interview, but before and after class, she was a hoot. I learned to love her very much. She has had some very difficult times recently, but her sense of humor was still there. It is important to me to be able to laugh when things go wrong.

The classes I enjoyed most was Yvonne's, Eva Marie Everson taught Fiction 101 and it was great. I went to a couple of DiAnn Mills classes and loved them. She is very sweet and encouraging to everyone. I could have taken her class all day and all night. I learned so much from all of these people.

The most important thing was that I learned a lot from people who had walked in my shoes. They had been where I was now. I appreciated their encouragement.

In October there will be a class called October Novel Retreat. It will only have 50 attendees and we will be in smaller groups and with mentors who are familiar with our genre. That excites me and yes, I have already signed up. The discount helped me decide if I signed up while at the conference.

If you are a writer, go to a conference. You meet other writers and authors. Most authors are very encouraging and helpful. Also, I liked the idea of talking to publishing houses. Now, I have work to do to get my manuscript ready to go to publishing houses.