Saturday, July 12, 2008

Day 5 - Lectures Continue...

Yesterday, July 11, 2008, our first lecture was by Shelley Tanaka, author of many creative non-fiction picture books, and the second was by Tim Wynne-Jones, author of Rex Zero, King of Nothing.  Both lectures were fascinating.  Later in the day we had a funny lecture by MT Anderson, author of Feed and Octavian Nothing among many others.  He was a great speaker, but in listening to him I realized how little I really know about the science of writing!  The auction later in the evening was hysterical-with the auctioneers being MT Anderson and Tim Wynne-Jones.  I wish someone had recorded it-we could've put it on YouTube!  The auction raised $8500 for the school's scholarship fund.

What did I learn today?  I learned about motivation, and how important finding your character's motivation is for you story.  How motivation drives plot.  And I learned how much I still need to learn!

Today's agenda:  Picture book day with lectures by Illustrator Janet Stevens and picture book author Susan Stevens Crummel, author Sarah Sullivan, and agent Jeanette Larson.  Later is the big party!

Tomorrow:  Norma Fox Mazer is coming to discuss her new book, The Missing Girl.  And...tomorrow night we find out who our faculty advisor is for this semester!


1 comment:

PJ Hoover said...

Motivation is so critical! Sometimes I need to really think about what a character's true motivation is, and it helps me totally refine my story.