I have been sitting at my laptop for most of the past week and a half attending an awesome on-line writer's conference put on by The Muse it Up Club. The courses offered would more than satisfy an author of any genre. I know they did me. In fact I took 22 of them .. hence my sore wrists and butt, and the spinning neurons in my brain. The presenters, and the moderators of the "chats" were supremely generous with their time, handouts, and answers to our questions. 

It was necessary to sign up for the conference more than a month in advance, and select the specific "classes" three weeks before the conference began. Like I said I took 22. Four days before the conference I started finding my way around the site and copying handouts. Three quarters of the classes I took had them - so I read them all before the conference started.

On the Monday (Oct 8th I found my classes in the Forum... a message board where the threads were the class topics. The instructor of the class posted an introduction - if s/he had posted handouts on the handout board, it would be brief, followed, usually with an assignment. Otherwise she would post the handout there. The students would then post their responses and questions - these would be answered by the instructor, and sometimes by other students. Each day or two there would be another assignment. You get the idea.

In addition to the forum the conference had real-time chats with the instructor of the course, and a moderator. These chats were attended by between 40 and 100 students. The instructor would type an intro and the students would q up by typing a ? and then waiting their turn to post the question .. much fun, learning and support. So much information - it will take me a month at least to absorb it all. The conference was invigorating. I signed up for next year, and also signed up for NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writer's Month which begins Nov 1. More about that in my next post.