writing seminar

Last Saturday I went to a seminar taught by Stacy Whitman. The focus was on the opening lines/first chapter of middle grand and YA fantasy/science fiction. What you need to do to hook to the reader/agent/editor. I enjoyed it, and Stacy said she wants to keep holding classes/seminars like this, and I hope she does. I would have enjoyed this one more if I hadn't been up until 3:00 the night before working on the opening lines of the first chapter of my book. Last week was a pretty crazy week around here, but even so, I shouldn't have put off trying to 'fix' things until the last minute. When I had my husband read it, he pointed out all the things that I did with the new opening, which were things I had specifically wanted to do by writing a new opening, so I was rather proud of myself. When I read those same lines at the seminar, it was pointed out to me by nearly everyone the things that I had not done (it was just talking heads and there was no sense of setting or character). I sighed and felt the briefest moment of 'why the crap am I doing this?!?', but that quickly disappeared, because they were exactly right. I am not (necessarily) a crappy writer. All of the things they mentioned were things that were bothering me in the back of my mind but I couldn't figure out how to work them out, so I went with the things I was actually trying to accomplish, and left the rest to be dealt with later. I know that's bad form, that I should only bring the best I can do to be worked on, but like I said, last week was a messed up week around here on a lot of levels, and what I did was the best I could do at the time. I am so glad the week is over and I look forward to polishing out the rough stuff this week. So here are the two different first lines:

A pale blue dragon glided gracefully to land in the clearing.

"Today the elf will surrender to me," Dawson said, stabbing the air with his empty fist.

Honestly, the second one has a little more oomph than the first one, don't you think? I'm not talking Newbery Award, but it's better than the first. Thank heaven for seminars that make you prepare things ahead of time, and then make you think even more afterward.

Which reminds me. My wonderful husband (with some unintended help from some wonderful friends) enrolled me in BYU's Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers Workshop this June. I've been wanting to go to this for years, ever since I first heard about it, but we've never had the money. After a generous, but unacceptable, offer from friends, we decided we had the money this year. If others are willing to sacrifice for me, I'd better step up and start pulling my own weight. So I'm going, and I'm excited, and more than a little nervous, and I've got a lot of polishing to do between now and June.