10 Things I Learned at the SCBWI Conference

This was supposed to be a coordinated blog topic, but it might be just me doing it. Heaven knows I'm uncoordinated enough as it is. Anyway, it's Monday morning, I've just come back from a weekend of too much food, too much information and not enough time to talk to everyone I knew. So strap yourself in for the most intense period of name-dropping this blog has ever known.

1. David Fickling is a national treasure who might have swallowed a Marshall amplifier as a child.


2. Sara Grant thinks I am a "media whore."


3. Some people got really upset by my anti-NaNoWriMo post. Sorry about that.


4. I want to be exactly like Sarah McIntyre and may have to resort to surgery to achieve it.


5. Dave Cousins is channelling his inner Carmen Miranda.


6. Katie Dale and her mum Elizabeth are never seen in the same room at once and may in fact be a single time-travelling author from the future. Or not.


7. Even Candy Gourlay gets exhausted sometimes.


8. Lisa Smith has women asking to photograph her cleavage.


9. Butters (a phrase from current youth parlance meaning "butt ugly") is not a term that female writers associate with Marcus Sedgwick.


10. Nick Cross has a lot of fine, funny and fabulous friends.

Thank you to everyone who organised, spoke at or attended the conference. It was an enormous success and I hope to see even more of you next year. Go SCBWI!

Nick.


Edit:
It was a coordinated effort after all - if you blog it, they will come! Check out these other great posts:

Candy Gourlay
Claudia Myatt
Dave Cousins
MC Rogerson
Keren David
Teri Terry
Rebecca Colby
Ellen Renner