The PW conference was wonderful.  Lisa Scottoline is a dynamic speaker.  She had many of us all fired up and ready to work twice as hard as soon as we returned home.

I’ll touch on a few of the highlights tonight but due to complete exhaustion–I am not a Lark, I’m an Owl–I’ll be brief, this time.  (More to come later.)

The weekend lived up to our high expectations.   Pennwriters has never failed to send me home eager and ready to put my posterior into my chair and work.

Here are a two examples to whet your appetites…

John Lamb’s session, Homicide 101, fantastic.  If you ever have a chance to hear this retired homicide detective speak, DO NOT HESITATE, GO!

Nancy Martin, always  a firebrand  and her sessions are never a disappointment.  You can find her over on The Lipstick Chronicles.

If you’ve read my Doggoned Dead excerpt you will find that I’ve rewritten the first chapter.  Yes, this may have been “my vacation” but you will see that it was a working vacation.

Now dear readers I’m going to pay some attention to Dear Hubby who made my conference trip a reality, give my happy-that-mom-is-home pups plenty of hugs, smooches, and cuddles, and then I’ll get some much needed sleep.

     As a writer, I should set a daily goal and strive to reach it.  I try.  I honestly do try, but it seems that when I do someone moves the goal line. 

     My goal for this blog is to write 200 words a day.  My daily writing goal on my books is 1000 words.  So far, I’m hitting the goal on the blog and falling short on the books.  I hope to change that. 

     I discovered that I was unhappy writing my book in two point of views and I am going back to the original format of writing it in a single POV.  This past week I’ve been doing a lot of cutting and pasting.  I hope that by the end of this week I’ll be rolling along on a much improved manuscript.

     The dual point of view was not working at all.  I also think that by going back to a single one I’ll be able to drop clues and red herrings easier.  I believe my remaining characters will be more fully developed and become more interesting. 

     My critiquing group is probably going to kill me when I hand them the new manuscript at the end of the month.

     Along with the requisite Strunk and White, there are a few other handy dandy reference books to have on hand…or not. 

     There’s The Writer’s Digest Flip Dictionary, by Barbara Ann Kipfer “For when you know what you want to say but can’t think of the word.”  Gee, I wish it came in a pocket edition I’m always grasping for words.  It never fails, I know what I want to say, but the word beats a hasty retreat to the back of brain and screams, “neener, neener, neener you’ll never find me!”

     The Writer’s Little Instruction Book, 385 Secrets for Writing Well & Getting Published, by Paul Raymond Martin is a compact little paperback filled with little sayings and quotations.  This book has been grist for one or two of my posts.  Someone gave the book to me, and I have to say that I’m glad I didn’t pay for it.

     Dynamic Characters by Nancy Kress fits well in any writer’s library.  And, it’s a great one for the novice writer.  I think she’s helped me develop better characters.

     100 words almost everyone confuses & misuses, from the editors of the American Heritage Dictionaries, is a nice book to pair up with your Strunk and White.  (Our former President should have kept one in his pocket at all times.)