My First Writer's Conference

End of July I went to my first writer's conference, Realm Makers, in Nevada.

It was a great experience! I loved being surrounded by so many writers ;0 

The best part was meeting people and having conversations. Some of which were about story, some of which were not ;) 

I'd like to share some highlights from the weekend :)

Faces I met, some of which I had previously seen only by picture: 

Met these two on the first day - Tracey and Lisa. Found out later on that they are good friends of one of my best friend's older sisters :D 

A bunch of awesome go teen writer teens!! Spent a lot of time with the two behind me, Audrey and Jonathan. 

Ted Dekker was the keynote speaker. 

Two more fun girls - Jessi and Charissa. 

One of the first people I met, Carla Hoch. I had a lovely appointment with her in which she gave me some amazing advice for my stories. She is big into fighting accuracy in stories and has this neat blog about it called Fight Write. 

One of the nights we all dressed up - Jill Williamson from Go Teen Writers and her husband dressed as characters from Guardians of the Galaxy. 

Olivia, a girl I knew from the blog GTW. 

Victoria, another GTWer I got to meet in real life ;) 

And Jill Williamson! It was a pleasure meeting her - I discovered Realm Makers through her post at the blog Go Teen Writers. 

There were so many neat things about the conference besides people - though the people were the best. ;) 

There was amazing food - a lot of the times we were served three course meals at fancy tables! 

That stick was chocolate ;p 

Such an artsy watermelon 

That stick was also chocolate ;) 

Dark chocolate fountain ;0 

Isn't that fancy?

For some reason I didn't take any pictures of the food, only desert. And the desert didn't taste nearly as good as it looked ;p

But it was still fun. ;)

There were so many workshops and classes. And I had a few appointments to speak with mentors and agents. 

All of these were extremely fun.

The first workshop was with David Farland. I really enjoyed that, and hearing his story. I found it super interesting that he writes diverse genre yet is a best seller :D

Keynote speaker, Ted Dekker.

Carla Hoch demonstrating realistic fighting techniques. 

I believe this and the next one were from Mary Weber's session - not sure on this ;/ 

Writer's can have some funny things sometimes - and this wasn't the funniest. Some of the topics were quiet questionable as to whether the speakers of words were sane ;)

Even though I was at a writer's conference didn't mean I couldn't write ;)
Hair washed, writing shirt worn, laptop ready.

This is actually true - though I've only put people I like in my novels ;p There's actually no one I hate anyways...lol, so not sure I COULD put in an enemy as those are non existent in my life. 

Of course I had to buy a shirt from the conference ;) pink. Loved it!
 

I made business cards for the conference - here's the back :D

Ted Dekker gave me a candy bar. I guess it was supposed to be calling to me? ;p 

Books I bought or were given to me :D I tried to be careful and not buy too many books - I feel I did good :) 

My "pile of contacts" ;p

The place I stayed at and where the conference was held:

Have to get a selfie ;)

 

Something from one of the book stands - just so lovely :) 

As you can see, it was an AMAZING time! 

Have you ever been to a writer's conference? If not would you like to go? If so what made the conference spectacular for YOU?