Time Spent with Other Writers is Always Educational

I attend a women’s only writers retreat twice a year. The spring retreat took place last weekend. It is worth every penny of the fee. I learn something new during each retreat through the course of conversation with other writers. Sometimes I learn new things each day.

I was visiting with Marty Knox, who is the author of Murder @ the Black Mesa Cafe, and she mentioned her storyboards on Pinterest. I asked some questions, so she showed them to me. She has a storyboard for each of her books.

I’ve had a Pinterest account for a few years, but I’ve never done much with it. I pin helpful articles and recipes that I’d like to revisit, but it never occurred to me to use it as a plot device. After looking at Marty’s storyboards, I marched right over to my computer and created storyboards for the first two books in my Legacy series. This simple tool helped me see my books from new angles.

I’m in the middle of heavy edits on my first book, Legacy of Secrets. There’s a major subplot that has been bothering since I wrote it. Removing it will change my book in a significant way. I need to replace this subplot with something equally powerful, or my story will fall apart. Gathering photos that represent people and scenes in Legacy of Secrets into one place makes it much easier for me visualize and plot.

Marty isn’t the only author who helped me over the weekend. Each lady in attendance helped or inspired me in some way. From Sharon’s advice on love scenes to a lunch discussion we had about religion in our stories, the knowledge was flowing as freely as the creative energy. I like to think I reciprocated support and added to the communal muse.

That’s the beauty of spending four days completely immersed in our writing. We all came away a little wiser and with our creativity revved and ready for the next chapter.

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