WILLAMETTE WRITERS CONFERENCE

I just returned yesterday from the Willamette Writers Conference at the Sheraton Hotel in Portland Oregon. What a whirlwind of information about the world of writing and the publishing world. You either leave there encouraged - I heard, "yes, an editor wants me to send them my first 40 pages of my book" -- or you are discouraged, overwhelmed, think that everyone is better than you and you just want to quit writing and join the nunnery.



I left there somewhere inbetween. But for sure, came home to a mess and that is what I have been doing all day long - recovering the house and catching up on work and knowing I need to follow up on all the things I learned from all the workshops I attended, one of them being to start a blog. So, here goes. To be truthful, I have a blog elsewhere in cyber space and I hope that blog does not feel like I am deserting it (sorry reallifejournal), but I just did not update it very often and no one ever read it except my writing class students who I made read it for an assignment. . .okay, confessions of an unpopular blogger :). . .



I really need to be better about daily blogging, so by starting over on a more popular blog hosting site, perhaps that will motivate me. . .either way, this is my attempt to follow up on what I learned. . .I need to be modern about this all and participate in the real world of cyber space.



I loved the feel and the buzz of the writers conference -- everyone seemed very encouraging there and I tried to meet a ton of people and network. . .I have some books I want to write, many ideas I have had on my computer for a while and have been adding to them, but the tyranny of the urgent [gee, that sounds like a book :)] gets in the way - for me that is my newspaper articles for The Oregonian. Last week I had three due for instance, one being my column, Real-Life Mom for The Oregonian's SW Weekly section - found beginning August 9 at oregonlive.com or in print in several local cities [West Linn, Wilsonville, Lake Oswego for starters.



Okay, now I will close. I had started a blog with this company before, but liked the name journal better, so I think I quit this one, or it got lost in cyber space.



Bye for now. Cornelia Seigneur

http://www.writermom.net/