Tanner (my son) and I went to a thing called the young writers and artist fest at USU (Utah State University). The theme was "This is me!". I really enjoyed the event. This is not directly related to adilas stuff, but I learned a lot and took some notes. Just sharing...

- Be brave enough to say - this is me

One of the workshops was with a band called Dyer Highway (a number of siblings and family members who do country and blue grass). Here are my notes from their presentation. I really enjoyed it. They did a great job.

- You have to learn the basics before you can take it to the next level.

- Once you get the basics down, you start to mimic other masters - getting influence from others

- Start getting out there

- Find a professional that can really help you get in to it

- Song - Basic message was things grow on you - love gets sweeter with time

- They were telling their story and used some fun songs to help fill in - helping to inspire young minds and help them see how things build up

- They allowed us to stand up and get in to it (break from being perfectly quite and sitting - I liked that)

- Finding out your path... it comes down to choices, decisions, and consequences

- They chose to give some of their music away for free

- Write and do what you believe... what is important to you

- They were thankful for their parents - watching and learning as they go along - "I learned more than just cooking"

- What is the moral of this story... We don't need fame or fortune to do what we do - do you have something to share? Tell your own story - Tell the truth and share your own story.

- You have amazing things to do

- Go change the world and tell your story

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Next we went to a workshop from a professional writer and author. His name was J Scott Savage (www.jscottsavage.com). Here are some of my notes from his presentation:

- Plotting vs Pacing - Often we only think of the plot or the set of events... Pacing deals more with when things happen and wrong and right times for those actions.

- Get tools to put in your tool box - you don't have to use the same tool every time, but it helps to have a number of different tools

- The big picture - start with what you know and divide your story into meaningful chunks

- The power of fourths (quarters)

- Conflict is necessary - writers introduce sub conflict early and then get more into the main conflict later or tie-in the sub conflicts with the main conflicts

- Plant seeds - good foreshadowing

- He was talking about a virtual "readers radar" - ping, ping, ping - How fast or crazy are the ping patterns. If you are doing a higher ping pattern, you had better use that later on

- Characters get sent on a quest

- Often they get put on a false path of some kind

- Something that the main characters believes to be true but that changes later on - seeds being planted for the real path

- Characters are active, not reactive - people want to root for your character

- Internal and external dilemmas collide

- Something changes everything - changing from inquiry to charging forward

- Obstacles help pull the readers in... the magnitude of the real dilemma

- The main characters may question their own ability and devotion

- Time is running out, the clock is ticking - what does the character learn?

- Big revelation - something happens and makes everything clear

- Scenes and sequel - fast and slows

- Towards the end... high action with minimal time to react

- Try fail cycles - false success - you think you know the end, but it doesn't work - once again, try fail cycles

- Eventually, all is lost - how can you possibly pull this off

- The author always has the real plan - the solution or the exciting climax

- Take your time with this (meaning the climax or solution) - The reader is looking for a big pay off

- When the reader finished... you want them wanting more

- Finish the story and then introduce something new - a new conflict and/or dilemma

- Writer's block - something went wrong with the story... how do you fix that...

>> Backtrack to where the disconnection happened

>> Put a plug in... something amazing happens here... keep going - do what you know

>> Push through to the end and you may need to circle back to fix some things - there will still be time, even if everything isn't fully fixed

Anyways, these are my notes from the workshop. It has nothing to do with adilas but that is what I learned today. Enjoy!