Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Romantic Novelists's Conference Day Two


Saturday was an example of how my life can be divided. I needed to be in two places at once. DS2 was celebrating his last day at prep school and there were all these wonderful sessions at the conference.........I may it back to the conference in time for Jill Mansell's talk which was the last session of the day.

Jill had us all laughing which did make it tricky to take coherent notes but here is what I can make out of mine (Jill if I have my facts wrong please please correct me - otherwise it might be embarassing!):

-she writes feel good fiction with nice people in it
-her characters are much wittier than she is (so she says)

-she writes by hand sitting comfortably on her sofa with tv going in the background

-she doesn't break the work up into chapters until she has written the whole book and can see where the breaks need to be

-she uses a time line

-she gets here ideas from being nosy, eavesdropping, watching tv while writing, problem pages in magazines, asking people pertinent questions

-sparks of ideas do just come


-she adores the Internet and has found that looking oneself up is like being in the a loo cubicle and having people just outside talking about you

-the biggest compliment is that she made a reader laugh or cry and helped them come through some hard times
-she collects embarrassing experiences
-she writes one book a year/ roughly 1000 words a day


Now Fortunately I can send you and me in the right direction for some brilliant reports on the the sessions I missed. Debs Carr has written up her day at the conference here. The notes are brilliant in their detail. Ray-Anne is working her way through her notes and thus far written up the Midas PR session here. We were lucky enough to have the independent book seller Mark Thornton of Mostly Book in Abingdon providing the conference with the book stall and a talk on Shelf Secrets. His account of the conference is here.


So the one successful thing I did do was have my camera handy to capture everyone dressed for the gala dinner........... So here is a selection of Romantic Novelist's in the bar of course



Here is Anne Ashurst and Giselle Green

















.












Here's Bex Leith and Lesley Cookman.













Jane Wenham-Jones and Katie Fforde

Kate Harrison and Sarah Duncan


























Julie Cohen and Pam Brooks aka Kate Hardy









Janet Gover and Ray-Anne (see above)












Fenella Jane Miller, Anna Jacobs and Jean Fullerton










Jill Mansell and Moi















Beryl Kingston



Kate Johnson

and her shoes!

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I LOVED that talk.
Brilliant.
And Jill Mansell was sold out in two bookshops in my town yesterday. All power to writing longhand with the TV on.
Maybe I should try that? Radio 3 does not seem to be working.
I foolishly forgot my camera so incriminating and cringe making photos from the Conference are off the list [late Sat evening - say no more], but hopefully there will be other delegates who can provide this service.
Happy writing!

Unknown said...

Ray-Anne you came to the post too early as blogger wouldn't let me load picutres earlier....you have been caught :-)

Lane Mathias said...

Great photos Liz and really interesting snippets from Jill Mansell. Glad you made it back in time for day two!

Deborah Carr (Debs) said...

Lovely photos, Liz.

I also thoroughly enjoyed Jill Mansell's talk, so funny and so interesting too.

Chris Stovell said...

I'm so glad that you and Debs went and I can enjoy the conference 'second-hand'. The photos are great, Liz, so good to put faces to names.

Flowerpot said...

sounded like a great conference Liz. Sorry I couldnt be there - but I love the pics!

Nell Dixon said...

Great pics.

Steve Malley said...

The Tiny Dynamo is quite the Jill Mansell fan. That makes you, like, almost a celebrity to her!

Unknown said...

Thanks Lane,Debs, Chrish, Flowerpot, and Nell.

Steve, I just hope some of Jill's fairy dust rubs off on me :-) Tell Tiny Dynamo that Jill is gorgeous and such fun to be with that one feels famous when with her especially after several glasses of wine!

Anonymous said...

Liz, I get my ideas by being nosy, not noisy! Although I suppose I'm that too...
Steve, who's the Tiny Dynamo???
(I did a book tour of NZ/Aus in April and came to Christchurch. There's a tour diary on my website. Stunning place and everyone was so lovely.)
Liz, your photo of me makes me look as if I'm bursting into song. I didn't, did I? Do hope not, for everyone's sake!

Unknown said...

Jill have corrected the typo :-) I am a bit hazy on the end of the evening but don't recall singing!

Phillipa said...

Thank you so much for this Liz. I WISH I could have heard Jill's talk so much - and the frocks/shoes are to die for.

Karen said...

Fab post and pictures. You're much younger than I thought you were!!