I’ve been to Alt Fiction this weekend in Derby (an event supported by Writing East Midlands!) and I’ve come away with my head full of plans and ideas. Perhaps the greatest “lightbulb” moment I had was something that Stephen Jones said: which is this for a genre writer attendance at conventions/conferences such as this are absolutely essential. (I had been coming to the same conclusion following my attendance at the World Horror Convention in Brighton earlier in the year.) If ever I discover the secret to time travel, as well as advising myself not to touch that chicken curry in March, I’ll go back to my younger self and demand that I start attend conferences earlier in my career.
But I am where I am, and Quantum Physics notwithstanding that’s unlikely to change. On a more practical note attending the conventaion gave me a list of areas I need to address to develop myszelf and my writing and I thought I would share them here:
What I need to do!
Enhance my “market knowledge” so:
- Subscribe to the British Fantasy Society
- Subscribe to Locus
- Review my list of “top 10 short story markets” and use it!
Build my online presence. Therefore:
Post this blog each week
Review my website
Look at how to develop my online presence (this throws up an interesting dilemma: If I do a Google Search I find there is a Richard Barber who is a medieval historian and gets more hits than me! Do I adopt a pen name to differentiate myself from this other Richard?)
And all of this around making sure that I keep on top of my writing “targets” both in the progress for my novel and other projects I’ve got in hand. I’ll try and follow my first “mid-year resolution” and post again next week to say how I’m getting on.
