Best of Breathe

© 2013 the Jotter’s Joint

As promised from my last post, I am sharing my Breathe Christian Writers’ Conference experience with you.

Instead of me telling you all about every detail, I’m going to give you the best sound bites that came out of the weekend.

I made every attempt to capture statements verbatim and will use quotation marks. With that said, please be forgiving if you later find I misquoted a speaker …

Take what works for you and leave the rest. Enjoy:

“Treat your writing like a business because agents, editors, publishers, bookstores, and consumers do.” ~Peter DeHaan 

“Writers shouldn’t settle for mere escapism.” ~Patti Hill 

“No one is more qualified to give your message than you are.” ~Twila Belk 

“If I took my character to a psychiatrist, what would I learn about them?” ~David Beach

“Be faithful to the task of writing and God will do something with it. He probably won’t publish your thoughts though.” ~Latayne C. Scott 

“If you get hung up on a form of writing, you won’t be able to write. Or, you get addicted to that form and you don’t move forward.” ~Tracy Groot 

“Social media isn’t your platform, but it does direct people to your platform.” ~Peter DeHaan

‘I have a love-hate relationship with the writing life. I wouldn’t wish to have any other kind of life . . . and on the other hand, I wish it were easier. And it never is. The reward comes sentence by sentence. The reward comes in the unexpected inspiration. The reward comes from creating a character who lives and breathes and is perfectly real. But such effort it takes to attain the reward! I would have never believed it would take such effort.’ From Elizabeth George’s: Write Away: One Novelist’s Approach to Fiction and the Writing Life 

 “All dialogue should have tension.” ~Patti Hill

“Don’t die with the story still in you … Let it out!” ~Twila Belk

“Read your dialogue out loud in a monotone to see if the words move you anyway.” ~Patti Hill

“We live most of our lives in contradiction … Quality writing requires friction.” ~Latayne C. Scott

“Give the muse something to work with.” ~Tracy Groot on Preparation

“An author’s job is to leave breadcrumbs.” ~Patti Hill

“Our writing must link the reader from the seen to the unseen …” ~Latayne C. Scott

I needed to hear all these things and much more. My “to do” list has pretty much doubled, but I can’t focus on its length or I will be paralyzed by it. But it’s there in list form (in the margins of my writing notebook with g* as a signifier that I need to take action).

My “to read” list has grown by leaps and bounds. I’ve added titles written by the presenters and writing resources they recommend. Some of the writing resources I wanted to avoid but my desire to do so is futile.

Resources:

• On Writing by Stephen King
• Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott
• Elements of Style by William Strunk
• Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card
• Writer to Writer by Cecil Murphey

I’ll be back soon with a few more things to share from Breathe!