It is an amazing feeling to write a scene, even a sentence, that gives you a little thrill.  I enjoy writing spooky stuff, and those thrills come when I feel like I’ve written a scene that is particularly gruesome or I’ve managed to capture a character’s reaction to the horrific thing that is happening.  It makes me pull away from the keyboard and make delighted spirit fingers.

If I describe my excitement to someone who doesn’t write, they often look puzzled.  From the outside, I’m just someone sitting at a computer who suddenly gets giddy for no apparent reason.  If only they could see the events that are happening in my head!

That’s one of the important things about writing conferences for me.  When I talk about that feeling to other writers, they get it.  They get excited along with me, and they share their experiences with writing a delicious scene that defined their character or the make-believe world they are creating.

The motto of the Florida Writers Association is “Writers Helping Writers,” and the  Florida Writers Conference is this weekend.  The panels cover topics from the craft of writing and the writing life, to the business of representation and publishing.  One my favorite events is the daily Genre Breakfast.  If you come to the conference, come sit with me and the other speculative fiction writers, and we’ll talk about how to make our fantastic worlds seem “real.”