Why was there no blog post last week? Because I was
at the 2014 Colorado Gold Conference and didn’t pay the hotel for the use of
the internet.
The Colorado Gold Conference is put on every year by
Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers. This year, the conference was September 5th
– 7th at The Westin in Westminster, Colorado. As always, the
conference was amazing. The sessions were helpful, and the hotel was very nice.
Maybe I’ve been taking writing classes for too many
years, but I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t find general craft sessions
at conferences very interesting. I did go to sessions on dialogue, tension, and
character development at Colorado Gold, but I liked some of the genre-specific
sessions much better. This conference had genre-specific sessions about the Victorian
era, science, the brain, witchcraft, sex, more sex, even more sex, violence,
and more violence. It was awesome.
Writing conferences are usually overwhelming for me.
I’ve never been very good at taking notes, and I learn so much that everything
jumbles up in my brain. This isn’t a bad thing. I remember what I learned when
I need to remember it. But, it makes it a little difficult to write a review of
the conference.
I learned one fact that clearly stands out in my
mind: Murderers often bite their victims. It’s an animal instinct that takes
over when people kill each other.
Out of all the sessions I attended, that fact is the
only thing that I clearly remember. I learned it in a session called Dying to
be Here: Techniques of Murder and Mayhem. The session was aimed at mystery,
horror, and thriller authors. I have no idea when I’m going to use this
information, but it sure is yucky.
If you go to a writing conference, try to attend
some genre-specific sessions, even if you don’t write that genre. They’re
pretty interesting. And, if you live near Colorado, check out the Colorado Gold
Conference. It’s one of the better conferences that I’ve attended.
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