I've never made it secret that LTUE is my favorite conference of the year, and this year lived up to the expectation--with the exception that I didn't get to attend nearly as much as I would have liked.  In fact, I was probably only at UVU for two hours of time beyond my panels all weekend.  So that's a big frowny face on an otherwise typically exceptional LTUE.  For all those who attended and I either missed completely or managed to toss a hurried word or two before rudely rushing off, please know that I missed talking with friends, old and new, a lot.  I promise to try to be more available at future conferences and hope I get more changes to talk.

Now to my panels.  I was on two, which isn't as many as I'd like--but they were good ones.  The first was Evil in Fiction with a great line up of three good friends--James Dashner, Jennifer Nielsen, and Jeff Savage (J. Scott Savage)--and criminal psychologist Al Carlisle.  Al was outstanding, and James, Jen, and Jeff contributed their typical greatness (and I mean that).  I moderated and they all made it very easy.  The panel was fun for us and, I believe, fun and helpful for the audience, which was most complimentary afterward.  It just worked. 

I like to end each session report with a little nugget on how to write the subject covered.  So, evil in fiction: Evil isn't only useful in epic fantasy, where you can get away with evil personified in the form of orcs or malevolent gods, or horror of many types.  Evil can be the jealousy your teen protagonist feels for a best friend, or the callous strategy employed by your Fortune 500 CEO regardless of the effect on his workers, or your heroine getting her perfect man to open up his heart and then stabbing him as hard as she can out of fear he will hurt her first.  We tend to call evil that which is really just a familiar emotion or desire intensified beyond our ability to understand it.  But get passed the particulars of the most evil actions, boil them down to simple basic emotions, and they will to some degree resonate with shadowy corners inside us.  Jung said that we all have our shadow self.  So to use evil in our stories all we have to do is put ourselves in a character's situation and find that dark, uncomfortable, negative emotion, be it hatred, or fear, or selfishness, and do what civilization tells us not to: make that feeling the priority.  What would happen if that overrode our conscience?  Our reason?  What if that hierarchy wasn't simply real, what if it were right?  And what if every action that stemmed from that motivation was then utterly logical, completely appropriate?  The teen is right to be jealous because she recognizes good in her friend that others refuse to see in her; the CEO knows his company is the life of every employee, and so the concerns of any one or few employees is not worth considering; the heroine is certain to be hurt by her man, all men, and so her action is only protective.  It's easy to write about evil that is alien, something outside and beyond our understanding.  Often it is far more powerful to create evil that resonates with something inside us, that tempts us as it tempts our characters, and this type of evil can be used in any story.

So, onto my second panel: The Principals of Suspense with James Dashner (again), Jeff Savage (again), Berin Stephens, and Kathleen Dalton-Woodbury.  I've been on panels previously with all these people, with the possible exception of Kathleen, who I've always respected a great deal.  This panel went just as smoothly as the first and was somewhat easier for me, as Jeff handled the moderator duties.  That meant all I had to do was talk, which I can do.  We fielded more questions from the audience this go round, and I think people appreciated that.  It felt to me like another successful panel, hopefully both helpful and fun.  I know it was fun to be on it.

How to write suspense?  Don't leave out too much!  Everyone seems to get the fact that suspense hinges upon something unknown that gets the reader anticipating, either fearing something won't happen or that something will.  That's true.  But perhaps the most common weakness I see in the stories of aspiring writers, especially in their beginnings, is leaving out too much.  When you omit too much of what is going on and why it doesn't generate interest and suspense; it creates confusion, antipathy, and resentment.  You can't generate suspense by giving people nothing to care about.  They have to understand enough of your story and about your characters to project possible answers to the one or two expertly withheld pieces.  You want anticipation, not confusion.  To anticipate, the reader has to have enough of the puzzle to make educated guesses about the whole image.  Keep too many pieces off the table, no anticipation.  So here's a good rule of thumb: generate suspense by having one or two SPECIFIC questions you want in your reader's mind at a time.  If the reader is thinking about the questions you want when you want and not other things, you almost certainly have them feeling suspense.  If they are wondering about things beyond those deliberate one or two questions, you've created confusion.     

Great LTUE, as always.  It was nice to see those of you I saw, and I hope to have more time to mingle at conferences in the future.

I nearly died Saturday night.  That is an exaggeration, but I'm not sure to what degree.  But good news before bad: the annual Writing for Charity event in Provo, Utah is now open for online registration.  This is a truly fun event for a great cause, not to mention a rare opportunity for aspiring writers to learn from published pros.  If you're interested, see the conference's marketing blurb below:

"Online registration is now open for the fourth annual *WRITING FOR CHARITY* conference!  Have your writing critiqued by professional authors ON SITE! Fabulous workshops! Very affordable! Lunch provided! A silent auction with amazing things to bid on.... all donated by the authors. Items include advance copies of novels, lunch with authors, manuscript critiques, and much more! Come schmooze with writers for a great cause--putting books in the hands of underprivileged children. March 17, 2012 (that's St. Patrick's Day) at the Historic Provo Library. Check out the website for more information: www.writingforcharity.blogspot.com."

I'll be at Writing for Charity for the first time this year, and I'm so excited it might be unhealthy.  I believe I'll be teaching a workshop and doing critiques, if you're interested.  It should be a lot of fun with a lot of really good writers.  If you can make it, you wont' be disappointed. 

That I get to participate in the Writing for Charity event is one of the roughly ten billion reasons I'm glad Amy and I didn't die Saturday night.  What happened?

Did you know that using tap water in a wet humidifier can, over time and without you even realizing it, build up mineral deposits it can then use to spew out poison?  Well, it can.  I woke up at 2:00 a.m. in the morning coughing.  Didn't think much of it at first, but then Amy joined in the hacking.  Neither of us stopped.  As the fog of sleep faded I grew aware of a strange tightness in my chest, like a slick had blanketed my lungs, making breathing harsh and difficult.  Neither of us knew what was going on, but I gathered my senses enough to assume it had something to do with our bedroom.  So we left.

Camping out in the living room, we tried to figure out what was happening and catch our breath.  Then I noticed I was cold.  Really cold. 

I don't get cold very easily.  Never have.  I was one of those idiot teen boys who waited for the bus in the middle of Utah winter while wearing shorts.  I almost never get sick, in spite of my indifference to dressing appropriate for the season.  So it was an odd sensation, that moment I realized, "You know, it's freezing."  Turns out I was freezing.  Amy is much more susceptible to cold than I am, but she told me she didn't feel cold, not a bit.  I was shivering so violently I could barely talk.

I bundled up in two blankets and, when that didn't work, Amy brought me two heated pads and another blanket.  She turned up the heat and then lay on the couch by my side, watching over me as I tried to keep from cracking down the middle from the cold and my quaking.  I think I must have slipped in and out of awareness, because all I remember is bursts of heat and cold and sudden aches from lying on one side or another until I shook myself so sore I had to move.

In a few hours the chills left.  The room was furnace hot, and I told Amy she could kill the heat, much to her relief.  Both of us were still struggling with tightness and tingling in our chests, and she had a roaring headache, but the worst was over. 

There was some hangoveryesterday, but I think we're both back to normal now, thankfully.

Turns out that the humidifier we use in our room (the dry Utah climate has hammered Amy since her return from North Carolina) had caused it all.  Tap water plus filter not cleaned as it should be can equal a makeshift chemical weapon dispenser.  The mineral deposits proliferated in the air can cause all our symptoms plus more.  Thankfully, I woke up fairly early into the night and we were able to get out of the room's tainted atmosphere.

First task after work today: clean every inch of the humidifier with bleach.  And we'll only fill it with filtered water from now on.

So there you have it.  Keep your humidifiers clean and running on only filtered water so you don't die.  Consider it a public service announcement.  And come to Writing for Charity!