The Word Cloud

Er ... is anyone else awake yet? And did that really happen?

A forum that invites you to share your experiences of York 2011: the good, the bad and the gossipworthy.

My personal highlight: the HUGE number of agents who told me they were seriously interested in some of the work/writers they came across this weekend. Many more positive connections made than last year I think, so it seems we're doing something right. (By which of course I mean YOU are doing something right.)

My personal lowlight: getting up on Sunday morning to find somebody had stolen an hour and turned the water in my shower to cold.

Favourite workshop: the Craig Taylor / James Gurbutt one, with the two of them arguing about whether a writer needs to write for the market or not. (The publisher says no, just write from your heart. The writer - who spent years just writing from his heart and making no money at all, then starts to think about the market, ends up writing better, and starts to make some money into the bargain - disagrees.)

Most amazing American of the weekend: Marcy Posner. I'd never met her before, but now I'm her biggest fan. She says she's the bluntest person in the world. I say I am. Humph. How are we going to sort this out?

My own personal favourite piece of work from the weekend: I was aware of Cicely Havely's work before this weekend (she was Friday's Authonomy Live winner), so I'm not going to count her. Ditto Gideon R and Uberto F. So of the stuff that was new to me, I liked JCM's psycho tube killer, Clare McG's Missing Persons stats, but I've got to give my personal round of applause to Kerry Fisher's "wrong sort of bra for a police cell" piece. I'll see if I can get her to upload it here.

Anyway - enough from me, what about you?

I'm up, I couldn't sleep because I was so psyched to apply all my knowledge!

My personal highlight: Kathryn Price getting as excited about my book as I am! She actually got goose bumps as I told her my plot arc.
And meeting everyone and having a good knees up on Saturday night.
My personal lowlight: Nearly hyperventilating as my shower was so cold Saturday.
Favourite workshop: Jermery Sheldon Plotting.
My own personal favourite piece of work from the weekend: Definately impossibe to choose from JCM and Clare McGs.

My personal highlight: Impossible to choose. So much good writing, so many wonderful people ... perhaps for me it was Jeremy Guy presenting me with a tube of toothpaste and making me feel so looked after that it brought a tear to my eye.
My personal lowlight: Leaving.
Favourite workshop: I only went to my own so I don't suppose I could choose that one ...
My own personal favourite piece of work from the weekend: Sorry to cop out but I could sit here all day listing the 'favourite' words I heard and read. And then I'd inevitably forget someone crucial and feel awful about it.

My personal highlight: Seeing writers here there and everywhere, having lightbulb moments about their work.
My personal lowlight: Realising how many fab workshops I couldn't go to
Favourite workshop:Toby Frost's (okay, it was the only one I managed to get to) because I admitted that I don't read sf/f and not a single person turned and zapped me with a ray-gun or a magic staff...
My own personal favourite piece of work from the weekend: Like Debi, I couldn't possibly choose. Although the Wrong Bra moment was pretty fab, and bits and scraps from so many Book Doctor scripts keep occurring to me.

My personal highlight: Everything was a highlight! Meeting Clouders made it memorable. Especially John's most accurate pictorial representation of himself. I salute that man.
My personal lowlight: The shower on Saturday AM as well! So glad I wasn't the only one!
Favourite workshop: Debi's Breaking the Rules!
My own personal favourite piece of work from the weekend: Agreed that the wrong bra hit all the pacing tick-boxes for me. Just hearing snippets and details from other writers made me realise that the potential for new writers does exist and hopefully everyone will improve and become what they desire.

My personal highlight(s): Recognising and being recognised by cloudies. Accepting that I couldn't pitch and being more relaxed and able to talk freely because of it. Sitting at 'that' table for the Gala dinner. And! being presented with a whole carrot complete with stalk.

My personal highlight(s): The brilliant technical advice and guidance from the Friday-Mini and Workshops - so much to think about and apply. And on a really personal level, meeting the Cloudies, having the best fun, being inspired by them and being amongst friends. (It was fabulous to see the excitement of those that were asked by agents to send more of their work in - just lovely).

My personal lowlight: sat on a bench looking at the water, with a minute's silence that even the geese observed and the realisation that a taxi driver was going to drive me away from Narnia and shut the wardrobe door for another year.

Favourite workshop: Developing Your Voice with Debi and Emma. It's hard to pick a favourite from a casket full of workshop gems, but I think this set the most challenges and gave me most to think about.

My own personal favourite piece of work from the weekend: hats off to those that read to us all, they were all great examples of work to inspire us. But I had one chat with a guy over lunch and he explained the premise of his novel to me (based in Northern Ireland) and it's really stayed with me as a super plot.

My personal highlight: So, so many. Meeting so many lovely Clouders; the opportunity to meet with so many luminaries; hearing an agent say 'your writing's terrific' (and pretending I didn't hear the ensuing 'but...'); Debi's generous words of enthusiasm and encouragement. But the highlight has to be Marcy Posner asking me to join her for a drink after she'd told me to drop a key part of my plot, and then when I suggested an alternative hearing her say 'Yes! That would do it!'
My personal lowlight: Saying to someone, as I departed, 'see you in Cape Town', only to get a blank look and realising I'd mistaken the poor woman for someone else. Sorry if that was you!
Favourite workshop: Impossible to split Patrick Janson-Smith's Making Bestsellers from Garbutt and Taylor's Market and the Muse, from Jeremy Sheldon's Points of View. All outstanding.
My own personal favourite piece of work from the weekend: Divya Nambian's piece at Authonomy Live. Yes, it was read beautifully, like pure Radio 4. But it was also a fine piece, Zadie Smith meets Arundhati Roy. Although a mention in dispatches to the marvellous Craig Taylor; I never thought I'd hear a literary novelist starting a chapter of his new book with "Oi, Fabregas - you're toilet!"

My personal highlight: MEETING JOHN JARROLD!!! I LOVE HIM! - Thank you to Kate Allen for the introduction as I was too shy to approach him. As the others have said there were many hightlights. Meeting Stephen King's UK agent was a big one. Meeting the clouders (I feel i've made some friends for life). Meeting Nicola Morgan, she is a bit of a hero of mine! Donna Condon informing me that though I had only been writing for a year I was doing really well and definitely on the right path! My shameless self promo of my blog (teehee). This worked BTW - I am now in touch with a couple of UK publishers & agents :)

My personal highlight: Meeting so many wonderful people - writers and industry alike. I had some great moments but the standout has to be asking Jeremy Sheldon, after his excellent workshop on plotting, for some plot advice; he drew a diagram on the blackboard and we talked through the different turning points of my story. A huge lightbulb went off in my head; here was the answer - so clear and simple. The next day I went back into the same workshop room and couldn't stop smiling to myself, because there, still on the blackboard, was my plot diagram.
My personal lowlight: Being SO nervous!
Favourite Workshop: Very hard to pick between Jeremy Sheldon, Emma Darwin and Harry's prose lab. I think Harry wins. Great delivery. Precise, economical and dazzling.
My own personal favourite piece of work from the weekend: Greatly admire all the wonderful authors who were brave enough to read for authonomy! But Cecily really made me laugh!

Also really impressed with the enormous and successful organisation of the event and for actually having the creative vision in the first place. Thank you Harry and your team.

I saw that diagram I wondered when it had been done!

My personal highlight: Gosh, so many to choose from, but David Nobbs keynote, being on 'that' table at the Gala dinner with the wonderful Cloudies, and a hugely inspiring 1-2-1 with Debi have to be my top three.

Highlight: Agent’s request for the full, meeting clouders, buying a double Sailor Jerry and Coke for under a fiver, calling Flickimp ‘Flickimp’ instead of Imran...

Lowlight: the damn quacking on Sunday morning – how do the students live with it?! Forgetting about the clocks changing and missing my train.

Favourite workshop: Not exactly a workshop but the keynote address from Patrick and Carole was sensational.

Favourite piece of work: John onceupon saying ‘Word Cloud’ onstage – he didn’t even need notes! One hell of a memory...

On a side note, what’s the MAXIMUM length of time you’d leave before sending an agent a requested full? Tempted to send it ASAP 'cause it’s still fresh in the agent’s mind, but obviously, no book exists that can’t be improved so I want to do a little editing...that said, where do I draw the line? Two weeks? A month? Any advice is much-appreciated.

My personal highlight: agent wanting to read my full ms, coming second in the Festival Comp. Oh, and the veggie menu - miles better than last year's ratatouille on polenta 'creation'.
My personal lowlight: someone nicking an hour's sleep from me. I blame the Tories, of course.
Favourite workshop: Adrian Magson's Crime vs Thrillers. I didn't meet other crime writers over the weekend until then. Crime writers are the best - they drink more, stay up longer and tell the filthiest jokes.
My own personal favourite piece of work from the weekend: Is it terribly bad form to say my own? It probably is, isn't it?

My personal highlight: Being surrounded by girls aspiring novelists.
My personal lowlight: The burger I ate on the drive way up, somewhere near Doncaster. That was naaasty. Oh, and waking up slightly hungover and unsure whether I'd put my clock forward or back.
Favourite workshop: I only went to one and that was mine, so I can't really say that. Instead I'd say that it was all very well organised and everyone I met was really nice.
My own personal favourite piece of work from the weekend: Hard to say. I was pretty impressed by the one-to-ones. There are a lot of people doing really good things out there.

Where's the edit button?!

My personal highlight: Accidental one-to-one that happened in the taxi on the way to the festival. A magical way to start. Also meeting some fabulous people, a few that spoke to my heart, one who is now stuck with me for good.

My personal highlights: Meeting so many lovely people (esp fellow cloudies) and catching up with them over the weekend following their 1-1s etc. A few ended up with requests for full MS and their thrill was contageous and wonderful! It was a little surreal to chat face to face with people I feel I know very well, but I loved that most of all. I enjoyed meeting David Nobbs as he signed my books, and being surrounded by writers all weekend was fantastic.

My personal lowlight: Choosing the wrong agent for one of my 1-1s; he spent half my 10 minutes talking about his sister and the Royal Marsden hospital. (Thanks to Debi for more than making up for this, with some great advice though.)

Favourite Workshop: Difficult to choose between Julie Cohen on Pacing and Emma's Voice and Jeremy Sheldon's plotting. ALL excellent. Think Julie wins by a nose because she 'paced' the workshop like her novels and was hugely entertaining.

Favourite Personal Piece of Work From The Weekend: John OnceUpon's 'Ghost Story Without a Ghost' which I was lucky enough to be told by him after our Gala Dinner.

As an excle who didn't make it to the weekend in York:

My personal highlight: Seeing how I could make significant cuts and really improve my wip - got the lawm mowed on Saturday.

No edit button - that should be 'exile'

I am so jealous. It sounds like so much fun. Maybe one day I should visit. :-P

My personal highlights: Meeting so many wonderful Cloudies. Arriving on Saturday morning and sneaking late into the main hall as David Nobbs was giving his keynote speach. Sitting down with a satisfied sigh and thinking 'I'm here!' My 1 to 1 with Hannah Westland the agent. I sat down, she saw my name and said 'Ah yes, the old Italian man' as she flicked through her files to find my piece. Then she suggested a slight tweak to the beginning and asked me to submit the first 3 chapters to her. My book doctor Jean Fullerton saying some of my decsriptive writing was brilliant, and then telling me to cut some of them out ha ha! Being on the table next to 'that' table.
My personal lowlight: Choosing the Roquefort cream cheese sandwich for Sunday lunch. I mean, it was nice, but an awful lot of Roquefort to swallow!
Favourite Workshop: Difficult to say, but if on the rack I would opt for Julie Cohen on pacing. She was inspirational, and a great antedote to a sleepy after lunch session.
Favourite Personal Piece of Work From The Weekend: I missed the Friday night session so didn't hear any other peices of work. So I will chose another type of work and congratulate the organisation of the whole event; a great piece of work.

M personal highlights: meeting so many lovely and exciting people; constructive and consistent feedback in the one-to-ones - not there yet, though; a fun night on Friday and Saturday; the visit to Haworth; meeting Julia Churchill, who has quickly become my yardstick of what a good agent should be;

My personal lowlight: rushing for the plane on the way back;

My favourite workshop: A tie between Nicola Morgan and Louise Allen;

Favourite personal piece of work from the weekends: Has to be the winning piece in the Authonomy Live event - although all of them were good!

Hi there. I just had to sign up on Word Cloud after getting back from York. First conference and a great time. Everyone was so friendly.

My personal highlights: It was great to meet other writers and listen to their experiences. Also good to hear from Patrick Janson Smith and John Jarrold about the business and be reassured by their passion.

My personal lowlight: I bet I'm not alone in hating the loss of an hour on Saturday night. Why couldn't it have been any other weekend? Y'know, the ones where I don't do anything.

Favourite Workshop(s): Tough one. Emma's workshop and mini course (with Debi) were great, but Nicola Morgan's Sunday children's workshop was right on target for what I write, too. I also have to mention Toby Frost's Creating Worlds - especially since I'd read and loved every book he mentioned (I'd have bought that man a drink in appreciation if it weren't the last workshop of the day).
Another highlight had to be seeing Harry wind up Craig Taylor and James Gurbutt in The Market and the Muse!
(Yeah, I know that's about half of my workshops, but I couldn't separate them)

Favourite Personal Piece of Work From The Weekend: Cicely Havely's reading was great.

My personal highlights: Had a great 1-to-1 with Toby Frost (fearing the worst). Not getting slammed after reading my first page at the mini-workshop. But I think the cake-stealer was: having crashed and burned on my first elevator pitch at the speed-dating(?) dinner (misunderstood her question) then having Debi almost leap up from the table when I gave her the real one, followed by almost a 1-to-1 on the spot as others filtered off to fill their plates.

My personal lowlight: Missing Debi's workshop and the Gala dinner because I had to slip out for some RL.

Favourite Workshop(s): Hmm, the Friday mini-workshop, Toby Frost, John Jarrold's home truths in the SF/Fantasy market, the agent panel ... all great

Favourite Personal Piece of Work From The Weekend: Cicely Havely's, yes, but (unfashionably, I think) I liked Gideon's Authonomy piece. It spoke to me at an honest level, and it seemed like a novel I would go out an buy.