"Writing is a mental illness"

...According to Shannon Hale (Goose Girl, Princess Academy, Rapunzel's Revenge). So I figured I'd give an update on the UVU conference, even though it's been like a week and a half.

The best part of the conference was Shannon Hale. She's hilarious. She lives here in Utah, and there's a pretty tight knit group of authors in the area. She had a slide show of "stalker pictures" of her with all her Utah author friends. Her classes were fabulous. She made me feel better about being a writer and a mom. She had a lot of good things to say.

There was also an editor from Disney-Hyperion, Abby Ranger. She was fabulous too. She gave everyone at the conference a sticker to allow us to send in one unsolicited manuscript in the next 6 months. Usually, most big publishing houses require authors to have agents. The agents take the manuscripts to the editors they think will be the best. Hyperion's usual policy is absolutely NO manuscripts submitted except by an agent. So I need to have my book done and ready to send in by October if I want to take advantage of this. (As a side note: Hyperion is owned by Disney, but they don't print the "Disney" books. The just print children's/YA books.)

One of the biggest things I learned at the conference? I know just about all there is to know. Now I just need to write. I was bored in many of the classes because the things that were discussed were things I already know. While I still think it was a valuable experience, I know now that my next step is finish a manuscript so I can actually go out and do all these things I've been learning about! Yippee!

PS. No word about the editing job yet.
PPS. David has lots of fun news, so you should bug him to share it on the blog. :)