As I mentioned earlier, I and my friend Kathy Steffen, went to the Love is Murder convention in Chicago this past weekend. It was a great time–aside from the car trouble.
One thing I liked about LIM is the size. I’m not sure how many people were there, but it was small enough you could actually meet and talk with people–like say have breakfast with Anne Perry. But it was also big enough that they pulled in some big names–Anne, Ken Bruen, Charlaine Harris, etc.
I also like that it wasn’t RWAized. Now don’t get me wrong; I love RWA. And, quite honestly, I think RWA is the most professional writing organization out there AND runs the best writing conferences AND offers the best/most professional/most educational sessions. But sometimes, this actually gets in the way of writing.
What I mean by that is, we tend to get used to someone telling us how to do things. We get out our little pads of paper and expect a roadmap of how to write a bestseller–or even just a readable book, and quite honestly, while you can certainly improve your craft this way, and streamline your writing–there will always be a certain piece of any really good book that just can’t be taught.
So, at LIM, I really enjoyed just listening to authors talk about their process, and the magic, and the pain of writing. I would have liked a few of the panels to be more structured or lead by people a bit more “in the know”, but I’m willing to take the trade off. I’ll certainly keep going to RWA cons and recommending the group to every writer I know–because they just can not be beat, but a different outlook is always a good thing.
Later I’ll pop in with some pics and a few things I learned while at LIM that I think might help other writers too. :)
