Sunday, March 15, 2009

Aloha and Mahalo, Hawaii

Yesterday, I was eating breakfast on a sundeck, barefoot and in my sundress, watching swaying palm trees and a rainbow arcing up into the clouds. Today, I was walking with my umbrella, winter gloves, boots, and two layers of clothing under a heavy coat after arriving home from Hawaii at about one a.m. this morning. Don’t you hate it when that happens? On the other hand, maybe I wouldn’t have appreciated the heat and sun as much if it had been the same weather here in the pacific northwest. I mean, there’s a good reason people go to tropical climates in winter.

My good reason was the Left Coast Crime conference at the Waikoloa Marriott Beach Resort. This was my first trip back to Hawaii since 1981 and my first time ever on the Big Island. What a place! The variety of vegetation and geography alone could fill a couple of blogs, but I want to talk about the wonderful LCC conference organized by Toby and Bill Gottffried and a team of friendly committee members who helped make the conference memorable, fun, and relaxed.

As always, the best part of going was meeting new people; some aspiring writers and others fans of mystery novels. I’ve come back recharged, raring to work on various writing projects. The third draft of my current work in progress had been going painfully slow, but I’ve edited four chapters this week alone, thanks to my husband’s laptop and my trusty flash drive. I wasn’t sure I would work in Hawaii at all, but the desire to write was revving up, so I spent an hour a day on the book, and the rest of my time was devoted to conference fun, site seeing, and shopping.

If you’ve never been to a conference before, save up and treat yourself, and make the most of the panels and discussions and social events. Writers especially need to network and these events present great opportunities. There are all types of conferences for different genres or just general writers’ conferences. If you Google key words in your area of interest, you’ll find a huge source of information. And if you know of a great one to recommend, feel free to contact me and I’ll share the info with others.

To read excerpts of Fatal Encryption and Taxed to Death—now both on Kindle—visit http://www.debrapurdykong.com/

2 comments:

Serena said...

I have only been to the one day conference here in D.C., which is still small, but I would love to attend a larger conference.

Debra Purdy Kong said...

Thanks for your comment, Serena. Bouchercon is huge and Left Coast Crime can be large 500+, but you do get to see a wide range of authors and sit on on lots of different panel discussions.