National Creative Writing Graduate Fair 2017 by Louise Marley

I recently attended the National Creative Writing Graduate Fair at Manchester Metropolitan University. There was an opportunity to attend panels and workshops, and pitch to a literary agent! However, it is hard to take in what is being said and make notes at the same time, so I have paraphrased!

Balancing Act:

Living and Working as a Writer

SJ Bradley (Writer)

Adam Lowe (Writer/Performer/Publisher)

AL: If getting started is difficult, try writing about anything. Or write around the subject – write about your characters, the setting, etc. Or draw a map of your location. Anything to trick yourself into writing.

SJB: It can be a challenge to get people to take you seriously as a writer. You have to be strict about your writing time. Think of it as work. Don’t let anything interfere.

AL: Switch your phone off. Have set writing times. Set boundaries.

SJB: If it helps, go somewhere to work where you can’t be interrupted – like a café. You’ll also get that ‘going to work’ feeling!

AL: Find time to think. Let things percolate. Reads books – it counts as work (films count too, if relevant). But be strict with yourself. And don’t work in the evenings, it’s unhealthy.

SJB: But don’t write yourself out!

AL: It can sometimes be helpful to leave something for the next day. Try breaking off halfway through a sentence!

AL: But it is important not to sequester yourself. It’s good to meet other writers. Bounce ideas off each other, compete with word counts, but be supportive of each other. Writers are like magpies, they love new and shiny. Meet new people. Have new experiences. It will make your writing come alive. If you don’t go beyond your own experiences the reader is never surprised and it can lead to inadvertently duplicating ideas or themes from existing books or movies.

AL: It’s easier for others to take you seriously as a writer when you are paid for your work. Don’t use the excuse that because you love your job you’re happy to work for free. Lawyers love their work too but they don’t work for nothing!

If you’re on Twitter, check out SJ Bradley’s timeline (@BradleyBooks), where you can find answers to some of the questions there wasn’t time for.

Going Digital:

New Opportunities for Writers

Kathryn Taussig (Associate Publisher: Bookouture)

Michelle Green (Writer)

Kit Caless (Co-founder/Editor: Influx Press & Co-founder: #LossLit)

Michelle Green told us about her collection of short stories, Hayling Island: Stories at Sea Level, to be published as a digital audio map in collaboration with a composer, digital artist and literary geographer. The map will link to local tidal reports and change according to the real-time time on the island. For example, a story set on one of the sand banks will be inaccessible when the tide is in!

Kit Caless talked about the digital story-telling project, LostLit, which explores the various influences of loss in literature. The LostLit Twitter write club is hosted every first Wednesday of the month between 9.00 pm and 11.00 pm, and open to all. Updates and retweets can be found on @LossLit, and hashtagged #LostLit.

Kathryn Taussig is an Associate Publisher for Bookouture, who were one of the first digital book publishers. Their challenge was to make their books more visible and to stand out from the crowd. With traditional publishing you only have one shot to get it right. Sometimes even the most promising books can fail for no apparent reason. With digital publishing there can be more individuality, and there is the opportunity to re-brand authors and try things that are different. For example, if a book cover doesn’t work it can be quickly and easily changed. Readers of ebooks are voracious and ideally they want two or three books a year from their favourite authors.

Bookouture publish mostly commercial fiction, including women’s fiction, romance, sagas, and psychological crime. They take unagented submissions, which can be made through a portal on their website. Their authors receive a higher percentage of royalties – 45% of everything they receive from the retailer.

Writing the Perfect Synopsis

Debbie Taylor (Founder & Editorial Director: Mslexia)

An elevator pitch is the character, their quest, and the obstacle preventing them getting it. Concentrate on just one character – who is the most important person in your story? – and be sure to name them!

A synopsis is the summary of characters and plot in order, not a blurb. Your submission letter explains who you are, the sample of three chapters proves you can write, but the synopsis is there to show how you plan to develop your story. A synopsis may also be used to create the blurb on the back of the book, and sent to the designer to create the cover art.

A synopsis should be between 500 and 1,500 words (but check individual guidelines). Write it in the present tense, third person, ‘omnipresent’ point of view. It should start with a summary paragraph, similar to the ‘elevator pitch’, followed by the sequence of actions that make up the plot. Summarise each character’s profile when they turn up. Who propels the story forward? Give their name, occupation, social position, and anything distinctive about their appearance or an unusual personality trait.

Related Posts:

NCW Graduate Fair 2016: Part 1: Panels & Talks by Louise Marley

NCW Graduate Fair 2016: Part 2: Pitching to Agents by Sophie Claire

How Not to Submit to a Literary Agent by Sophie Claire

Writing: Getting Serious by Louise Marley

Links:

The National Creative Writing Graduate Fair

The Manchester Writing School

Manchester Metropolitan University

Comma Press

Louise Marley is an Amazon Top 100 bestselling author and a creative writing tutor with Writing Magazine. Her latest book is Trust Me I Lie.

My First Writing Retreat by Sophie Claire

Do you ever wonder how much you could achieve if you weren’t constantly interrupted by the demands of daily life and could concentrate solely on your writing? Well last weekend I did just that when I went on a writing retreat for the first time. It wasn’t anything official – just a group of us who booked into a Bed & Breakfast in the grounds of a monastery in Yorkshire.

Beforehand, I was excited at the prospect of immersing myself in writing for 3 days and being in the company of writer friends, although I must admit I was a bit nervous too about not having my usual desktop (I borrowed a laptop) or a printer, and also, would it be too intense? Would I be the naughty one who was always stopping for cups of tea and distracting the others? (*coughs* that did happen, but I think they were happy to stop – and eat flapjacks!).

The orchard (the monks produce their own apple juice)

The vegetable patch

I needn’t have worried. The technology worked, and I was at my desk at 8am each morning.

Away from my usual routine, I was really productive and more focused; although we had internet, I wasn’t as tempted as usual and enjoyed the uninterrupted stretches of time to write – what a luxury.

My word count steadily increased, but regular breaks were essential, so I explored the monastery grounds, which were surprisingly big for a town site.

The whole place had a very peaceful atmosphere, with benches dotted around everywhere, inviting you to sit and contemplate...

...Encouraging you to slow down, and live in the moment.

By the third day I felt immersed in my story and with this came a feeling of deep calm. It reminded me of when I took part in NaNoWriMo last year – I experienced the same freeing up of the imagination and shutting off of the inner critic, allowing my imagination space to simply create.
I could hear the outside world, the cars and buses trundling past on the main road nearby, yet I felt cocooned here and apart. Cloistered, is the word, I suppose.

The church bells rang four times a day and they soon became a familiar background noise, also calming. Out of curiosity we went to evensong, which was beautiful and the monks were very welcoming. (I kept setting my alarm to go to 6.45am matins too, but I confess I never made it!)

The church

Anne Stenhouse, Sophie Claire, Kate Blackadder
& Helena Fairfax

After evensong we headed out to eat in the local pub, where we soon became regulars.

Unlike the monks’ meals, these were not silent!


The four of us had lots to catch up on, writing projects to discuss, ideas to share. All good fun and inspiring.


The whole experience was very liberating and productive. We all agreed that we’d like to do it again and I look forward to that.

Have you ever been on a writing retreat? How was your experience? 

Sophie.x

Links:
Anne Stenhouse
Kate Blackadder
Helena Fairfax
Sophie Claire

I Can't Write Without... by Sophie Claire

…My stash of rough paper.

I know – it's not glamorous, it's not an expensive gadget, and in this world of laptops and printers you might think it's a little peculiar and very old-fashioned.

Obviously, I have a computer and this is essential for editing and making the manuscript presentable to the rest of the world, BUT without rough paper I simply wouldn’t have a book to show in the first place.

What Do I Use It For?

• Morning pages (à la Julia Cameron). To get me into writing mode at the start of the day I write three pages of whatever's on my mind. It's a great warm-up, and also good for getting any worries off my chest so I'm then free to focus on the novel I'm writing.
• Sketching out a new scene. Everything I write begins life as rough scribbles, sometimes pared down to pure dialogue to give me the essence of the scene, and I build up from there. 
• Thinking through problems: if I’m stuck, I stop typing and go back to paper. I brainstorm solutions, or write a kind of stream of consciousness, putting down on paper any thoughts that come to mind. Anything at all. This often throws up surprising results and sometimes the solution isn’t as difficult to find as I first thought.

The stash:

It’s made up mostly of discarded printouts of my work which I’ve scribbled all over (are you surprised that I also edit by hand?), but environmentalists will be pleased to know that I also salvage from around the house any paper which can be re-used. Letters, flyers, the children’s old homework, including maths papers and sheet music. (For some reason, these especially delight me: I love to see the outlines of graphs which are beyond my understanding or the notes of silent melodies). 

It’s messy - but that's the point:

The fact that it’s not pristine sheets of paper is crucial. 

It tricks my brain into believing that what I write doesn’t matter, that I can relax and anything goes. Whatever I scribble on there can be as messy, as clichéd, as honest and as terrible as I like because it’s for my eyes only. The paper’s usedness, its tatty, second-hand rejected state encourages me to open up and just write.

The first couple of lines are usually rubbish, but then I tackle the problem, thinking around it, or getting into the head of the character who’s been enigmatic. They begin to reveal important facts, or sometimes, if they’re still holding back, I ask them questions. (I’ve been told that if I did this using my left hand to write it might be even more effective because it unlocks the right part of the brain, but I confess I’m too impatient). 

With the help of my stash of rough paper, I often unearth gems of ideas, or come up with novel solutions to plot problems. I simply couldn’t do without it.

Do you ever use paper and pen? What is essential for your writing?

Sophie.x

Her Forget-Me-Not Ex is currently 99p/$1.30 in the Kindle sale! 

It's available here.

Research On the Go - a fairy tale by Valerie-Anne Baglietto

Once upon a time...

...a woman of indeterminate age set off on a journey. This woman – with dark hair that was not entirely natural anymore, and dark eyes framed by black geeky glasses – was, and always had been, a Writer. The journey wasn’t as perilous as others she had embarked on, as it didn’t involve the M6; but the A49 proved eventful enough.

The cottage the Writer was staying in for a week had a wonderful, quirky name, yet she wouldn’t reveal it to anyone until her dying breath – or at least until it popped up in one of her novels.

The detachment of being away from home lent a fresh perspective to her research. She found herself taking lots… and lots… of photographs with her phone. (Thank goodness for WiFi and that one terabyte of cloud drive, she realised, as she made sure to back them up daily.)

Now, oddly enough, the Writer lived in a picturesque village herself. But somehow, it was easy to be blind to sights she saw regularly. The saying “familiarity breeds contempt” didn’t seem so cliched when she considered how a never-before-seen vista can spark inspiration, or a new outlook lift a story up out of the grey and into a rainbow of light.

Trying to capture the essence of a place in a photograph wasn’t easy, the Writer discovered, especially with a phone case that made the edges of certain photographs blurry and pink. But it was worthwhile and fun. Viewing the typical settings of her stories with a fresh lens meant creativity was stirred and new scenes imagined.

An old gate here (ooh, the possibilities of where it might lead!) or a pretty cottage. A crumbling, ancient gravestone remembering a tragic young life, or a war memorial marking the loss of so many others.

The Writer’s brain was never still, never silent. 

Without the infinite number of errands and chores she faced back home, it was uplifting. Only a finite number to tackle here. Such as feeding the dog. And the children. The writer might not be sitting at her desk slaving over her keyboard, but she was working, even while enjoying a break from the chains of deadlines or fitting in laundry (washing and hanging) between chapters. She was “on holiday”, and yet… she wasn’t. There was no need to feel guilty. She was free. Her mind was free. More importantly, inspiration was free – to run wild.

How fortunate Writers are these days, she thought, to be able to record their travels in pictures, storing them in albums on hard-drives or printing them out and pinning to study walls. Perhaps she would add her photographs to a Pinterest board. Or use a particular favourite as a screensaver. She would decide once she was home. There was no rush. No pressure. It was satisfying simply to be able to enjoy them and play games with the possibilities...

A whitewashed cottage for the heroine,
with flowers around the door.

A posh house - for a posh person? 
The hero's imperious mother, maybe?

'The Old Vicarage'. 
Does that mean an old vicar should live here?

An uber-modern interior for the posh house?
Interesting...

Who would want to walk along here on a dark night?
*shudders*

Every village needs a quaint church,
but just look at that impeccable lawn!
(Gardener with a strain of OCD perhaps?)

And of course, the village local.
Indispensable.

Once upon a time...

...a Writer went on a journey and finally returned home, if not with a tan (it was only the Forest of Dean, after all), then at least with a whole new village in her head.

The End

By day, Valerie-Anne Baglietto writes contemporary, grown-up fiction. By night, she clears up after her husband and three children. Occasionally she sleeps. During her career so far she has written rom-coms for Hodder & Stoughton, won the Romantic Novelists’ Association New Writer’s Award and been shortlisted in the 2015 Love Stories Awards. Valerie-Anne tweets @VABaglietto

Valerie-Anne's latest modern fairy tale for grown-ups is available from Amazon worldwide click here for more details.

Learning Storytelling Techniques from Writing Serials by Juliet Greenwood

I’ve learnt so much from writing serials. Seeing the latest serial by my alter ego, Heather Pardoe, has reminded me just how much the techniques have helped me when writing my novels.

Juliet Greenwood

The art of writing of a serial is not to be underestimated. It has to be divided into parts, with enough characters and action to keep the story moving, while each part builds to a cliffhanger to leave the reader itching for the next part to arrive. Possibly not with quite the frenzy that greeted the climax of Charles Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop, but as near as. No one has yet stormed my local newsagent on the day of publication, but you never know …

Juliet's latest serial in The People's Friend

You also have to keep the story moving evenly between the various sets of characters, so the reader doesn’t have time to forget or lose interest, and so keeps a vested interest in finding out all their fates. At the same time, the arc of the story must build, as in a novel, and the cliffhangers at the end of each episode need to build as well, ratcheting up the tension until you reach the final climax in the penultimate episode. 

Vanity Fair

The final episode then has to resolve the story and tie up all the ends without leaving a sense of anti-climax. A lesson in exactly how not to do this is Thackery’s Vanity Fair, which was originally written as a serial. When I re-read the novel recently, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cringe at the final ‘episode’, when the author had clearly finished the story and absolutely and totally lost interest, but had a word count to fill (even Dickens and Thackeray wrote for filthy lucre) and was waffling shamelessly.

Funnily enough, although I studied Vanity Fair as part of my Literature degree, it wasn’t until I became a writer of serials that the damp squib of that ending made sense. Because I love Becky Sharp, I’m quite glad Thackeray’s half-hearted pontificating is more in the cause of money than good old Victorian pomposity! I’m still nervous when planning the final part of each of my own serials and the endings of my novels. It’s definitely a lesson I’ve taken to heart. 

The White Camellia

Most of all, I’ve found I go back to the lessons of serial writing when I’m telling a story from two different points of view in my novels, as in The White Camellia, published by Honno Press, which is told from the viewpoints of two very different women, linked only by a family feud they need to resolve. Balancing the two viewpoints, and maintaining the reader’s vested interest equally in Bea and Sybil, was something I found a real technical challenge. It was overcoming that challenge that made me understand just how invaluable I’ve found the lessons I’d learnt while writing serials like Together We Stand.

Writing a serial, which is on a smaller scale than a novel, is definitely an excellent way to practise the techniques of writing a page-turning story with the interest balanced between the characters – and I always get a childish kick out of actually getting my story illustrated! 

If you want to try writing a serial, you need to check out the market and follow the guidelines – they know their readers and exactly what they like. Magazines like The People’s Friend will work with you on a serial they feel has potential, and are very supportive and great to work with. They also have a huge readership, so are a good way to start getting your name out there.

Useful Link 

Writing Serials for The People's Friend An excellent blog post from author Wendy Clarke, with tips on exactly what the magazine is looking for

Juliet Greenwood

Juliet is the author of three serials under the pen name ‘Heather Pardoe’, and has had three novels published by Honno Press. The first, ‘Eden’s Garden’, was a finalist for ‘The People’s Book Prize’, and the second ‘We That are Left’ was completed with the aid of a Literature Wales Writer’s Bursary. Both reached the top #5 in the UK Amazon kindle store. Her latest novel ‘The White Camellia’, is set in Edwardian Cornwall, with a crumbling mansion, a goldmine with a dark secret, and a long-running family feud. She would definitely like to turn that into a TV serial!

Juliet's Books

The White Camellia

We That Are Left

Eden's Garden

Social Media

Blog

Facebook

Twitter

Pinterest

A Little Learning by Anne Bennett

I can't remember a time when I didn't write. I was a voracious reader and they seemed to go together. However, I never expected to earn my living by writing books!  That sort of thing didn't happen to working class kids in the 1960s when I was growing up.  I also wanted to teach, though I achieved this by  a roundabout route, entering Teachers' Training College as a mature student after I had got married and had two children of my own.  By 1976 I had my teaching certificate and was doing a job I loved.  Alas, in the spring of 1990 a spinal injury caused lack of feeling and movement down my legs. I had to use a wheelchair and I was invalided out of teaching.

We moved from the West Midlands to a beautiful town in North Wales, but my life stretched out like a void and so to fill the days ahead I began to write. I began to research the origin and meaning of nursery rhymes, a topic that had always fascinated me. I then went on to write for children, interspersing this with writing short stories for the writing magazine I took every month.

I only ever submitted one of the stories.  It was for a competition for Valentine's Day and my story came second. The prize was a year's subscription to the Romantic Novelists' Association  (RNA). This organisation run a critique service, the New Writer's Scheme, where unpublished writers submit manuscripts to be read and critiqued by established authors.

My first submission  the reader said was good but not good enough to be published but, more importantly, it explained why it wasn't. So I made sure I didn't make the same mistakes with the second submission! That was called A Little Learning and it was accepted by Headline. I was ecstatic. It was the most semi-autobiographical book I have ever written.  I was advised to 'write what you know', and so the house on the original cover was the house I moved into at the age of seven. The book opens when Jane Travers was 11 in 1947. I wasn't born until 1949, but like her I was a scholarship girl, the only one on the sprawling estate I lived on to pass the 11 plus. Like Jane's mother, mine had a  cheque she had to pay in weekly, because the cost of the uniform and other required items came to nearly £100 -one hell of a lot of money for working class people in 1960!

By then the government had built new grammar schools, although mine was only two years old, but before then private schools had to offer a quarter of their places to scholarship pupils.  My school was set in a middle-class area and most of the pupils were middle-class too. Scholarship kids from council estates were a race apart.  If I suffered discrimination, I could easily imagine what my Janet Travers was going through, and I had a very special feeling for her - my first heroine and the journey through the book she had to make.

It is over twenty years since I wrote this book and life is very different for me. I joined Harper Collins in 2001 and regained the ability to walk in 2006. A few years ago Harper Collins bought the rights for the books I originally wrote for Headline and are re-issuing my very first book this summer. Although the title stays the same, there is a new jacket cover. This shows my Jane all grown now and a teacher on playground duty.

A Little Learning will be released on the 24th August 2017 and hope you enjoy it! 

www.annebennett.co.uk  

Ask Annie: How do you plan your books?

"How do you plan your books? A kiss at 25%, sex at 50%, an argument at 75%? Or do your books grow organically?"

Organically, definitely.  From somewhere out of the depths of my imagination will come a scene, or an incident… (eg, a girl waking up in bed, naked, with a stranger and no memory of how she got there, or hiding from an embarrassing moment in a ballroom only to witness a scheming woman trying to entrap a man, and facing the moral dilemma of whether to risk more embarrassment by coming out of hiding and saving the hapless man, or staying hidden and feeling guilty for leaving him to his fate.)

From then, I imagine what led up to that moment.  And how the participants in it will deal with it going forward.  And, yes, since I write for Harlequin Mills & Boon, how I can resolve all their problems and give them a happy ending.

The scenarios that will lead to a happy ending may get worked into a synopsis, or brief outline, and filed away in one of my many notebooks.  So that if ever I run out of stories I’m burning to write, I can consult them for inspiration.

Sometimes the story flitting round in my head is so consuming I HAVE to write it down, and really come up with ways by which the poor unfortunate creature I have imagined in her pickle, can find a way to achieve a happy ever after.

The actual amount of kissing, or sexual intimacy which I write can vary immensely, since it stems very much from the characters personalities and the situations into which I have flung them.  In some stories, for example where the couple have to marry for some reason at the start, they may work through their issues with arguments alternating with make-up sex (I think of these as honeymoon books)

In others, if my heroine is a complete innocent, and the hero is trying to win her, or rescue her, then they might not even kiss with any passion until pretty near the end.  (my courtship books)  It really does depend on the characters.

So my books are a bit like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates.  You never know what you’re going to get.  (And please, no quips about preferring hard or soft centres!)

The one thing I do need to factor in, at a certain point of the drama, is the “dark moment”.  Just as the characters seem to be finding their way to each other, there has to be an incident which will almost tear them apart, which will test the strength of their love, so that when they come through it, the happy ending feels much more emotionally satisfying than if they hadn’t had to face it.

But of course, being a romance, they will come through, in one way or another, whether it means the hero climbing in through a bedroom window with a rose tucked into his crossbelt (An Escapade and an Engagement) or simply writing the heroine a revised list (Lord Havelock's List)  (Though it’s funny how it nearly always seems to be the hero who has to do the grovelling!)

To be honest, I think that planning out my books to the extent you mentioned would feel a bit like painting by numbers.  Maybe it would be a bit easier if I could produce stories in this way, but I wouldn’t feel as if I was being so creative.  Nor would I get that sense of getting to know my characters as I write about them.  They wouldn’t become such real people to me, or, I suspect, to the reader.

Annie's next book is "The Major Meets his Match," the first of a mini-series with three heroes attempting to solve a crime.

Annie considers it one of her "courtship" books.

It is available for pre-order from Amazon.

You can read the opening on Overdrive

Why Attend a Writing Conference? by Sophie Claire

I have a writer friend – let’s call her Jane – who recently divulged that she’s been a member of the Romantic Novelists' Association for twenty years and has never been to a conference.

I know – what a shame!

Goody bag

I’ve been to 8 conferences, and I always come away brimming with ideas and motivation and a hangover.  This year the RNA conference was held at Harper Adams University, and I thought I’d write a post about it – because if Jane knew what went on there, she’d want to try it for herself, right?

So what happens at an annual gathering of romance-loving writers? And aside from receiving a free goody bag (with chocolate and free books - Jane will like those!), what’s in it for you?

1. It’s informative:

Industry panel
(photo by John Jackson)

Because the RNA is a professional body, it offers the rare opportunity to glean from the experts their insights into the current state of the publishing industry and future trends.

This year the conference kicked off with an industry panel made up of agents and publishers. What they had to say was positive: people are still reading a lot (sales of books were steady year on year), and romance and crime are the most popular genres (6 out of 10 books sold are romance). In the UK, sagas are especially sought after (although readers are wary of longer books), and there is more of a mash-up of genres developing: for example, we’re now seeing domestic thrillers with a sexy edge.

2. Industry appointments:

The conference gives writers the rare opportunity to pitch to agents and publishers, and also freelance editors, all of whom give feedback on your submission. I previously blogged about my experience here and it was through one of these appointments that I got my first book deal with Accent press.

3. Bestselling writers:

Kate Johnson interviewing Jill Mansell

There’s nothing more exciting than meeting your heroes, and this year’s conference had its fair share of big names in the romance world. 

Jill Mansell talked about her writing method (by hand, with the television on and using post-its to plot ahead), why she likes to use a village setting in her books, and her solution for when she’s stuck with the plot (throw in a new character!). 

And Sarah Morgan and Nicola Cornick gave a workshop on Using Social Media which stressed the importance of engaging with your readers and driving as many followers as possible to your newsletter. (I’m a huge fan of Sarah’s and was very excited to get my book signed after her workshop!)

Sarah Morgan and Nicola Cornick

Fiona Harper

4. Writing craft workshops:

There’s the chance to learn or refine your writing skills, with two days packed full of workshops. 

I always find it useful to step away from my novel-in-progress and ask myself questions such as What is your character’s goal? This was one of 10 questions which Fiona Harper gave us in her workshop, Building Characters From the Inside Out, which focused on developing a strong character arc and that inner growth which makes a novel so satisfying to read. 

5. Inspiration:

There’s inspiration everywhere at the conference – in other writers’ success stories, the workshops, in the books which are for sale! How often do you get the opportunity to work with a life coach or learn about screenwriting?

Sonia Duggan taught us that our brains are instinctively risk-averse, yet the most exciting ideas usually involve stepping out of our comfort zones. She gave us tips to help us be less fearful in our writing, because if you’re willing to take risks, anything is possible!

6. Fun and friendship:

There’s nothing more motivating than spending time with writing friends – and making new friends too.

Novelistas Sophie Claire & Annie Burrows

Hearing about other people’s experiences and their methods of working, or about new opportunities is always beneficial. 

The RNA is a wonderfully warm community, people are generous with their help and advice, and I’ve always been made to feel welcome. 

The Gala Dinner

First-time conference goers (are you listening, Jane?) have the chance to join an online group so they can ask questions beforehand and meet others in the same boat when they arrive. Their name badges bear a little sparkly sticker so the rest of us know to make them feel especially welcome. 

Plus there’s wine – lots of wine (600 bottles, to be precise). What’s not to like?!

7. Time to think:

I’ve learned that I get more out of the conference if I allow myself breaks, and since Harper Adams University is an agricultural college, I decided to explore the grounds and look for the source of the pungent farmyard smell which permeated everywhere!

Although I didn’t find it, it was time well spent, letting my mind wander and chewing over all I’d taken in. 

Time out from daily responsibilities is good for the creative mind. It gives you space to breathe, to explore new ideas and be reminded of the important stuff – like your long-term goals and priorities.

Now I’m home again, and back to the daily routine...

...but feeling re-energised, and I have plans and ideas which I’m excited about. The conference always has this effect: it motivates me and makes me more productive.

So I wonder – will Jane be persuaded to try it next year? Will you?

Sophie.x

www.sophieclaire.co.uk

Photos copyright: John Jackson and Sophie Claire