Cherry Adair With LIRW

All this past week I've stayed home from work trying to rid myself of damn bronchitis.  Why?  Well for one thing no one likes being sick and two, this weekend is the LIRW workshop with Cherry Adair.  I've been  registered for this since October 2012  and then Hurricane Sandy decided it had other plans for us.  It was rescheduled.

 I have a room  reserved for me and two other LIRW members, Lisa Jo and Dawn. I'm excited about going but yet nervous.  I don't know why.  Maybe it's because I'm not a fast note taker or I'm afraid I'm not going to "get" what she's talking about, especially the plotting, since I'm a "panster",(one who doesn't really plot out stories but goes by the seat of her pants).


On Saturday Cherry presented a workshop on Layering and Texturing Your Novel.

Though a lot of this was sort of like a review, I enjoyed going over it all.  It's amazing what you forget until someone reminds you. Cherry also had some very good tips that she shared.   I took a decent amount of notes because it helps me to remember and yes, I was slow.  Every once in awhile I had to look over the shoulder of the woman in front of me, to see what she had typed so I could catch up.  Thank goodness she had a laptop so I could read it.

 Sunday's  Plotting workshop was an extra day for LIRW members only.

                                                        Cherry is the Post-it queen.

                                                                Our group hard at work

As Cherry said this technique won't work for everyone.  A few of the others and I had trouble doing what she said to do but others loved the procedure.  One of the other LIRW members, Michelle, also a pantser, suggested that I write my story and then I could plot it out on the board,using Cherry's technique, to see what areas were weak.   It's a good idea.

I'm glad I went. Learned some new things.   Got to spend some time with friends. Instead of going out to eat with the big group and Cherry, I hung out with three other members and brainstormed while eating pizza in our room.  It was a nice change of pace.

What workshops have you been too?  Did you find them helpful?