What I learned this semester

I want to start off this post saying that I'm going to my first writer's conference this Friday and Saturday! I'm kind of nervous, since in person I'm rather shy and don't usually approach people, but also really excited to hopefully meet new writers and learn more on how to better my writing. Anyone going to LDStorymaker's Conference this weekend, let me know in the comments! Hopefully I'll see you there. Now for the meat of my post.

This past semester I was lucky enough to get in a class of Writing for Children and Adolescents taught by Carol Lynch Williams (The Chosen One, Miles from Ordinary, Glimpse). We focused on writing the beginning of a MG or YA novel. And from this semester, I've seen my writing skyrocket with improvement. These are a few things I've learned or discovered in this class:

• Sense of place. Looking back on my writing, I'll mention characters are at a baseball field, and make no reference to that baseball field again. Carol really helped me with learning to create a sense of place through descriptions and reminding readers as my characters are talking, that they're at a baseball field.
• Write outside of your comfort zone. I generally write fantasy/sci-fi with a female narrator, and for this class I wrote a contemporary with a male first-person narrator. It was really hard and challenging for me, but I think that seeing how to work within a genre and narrator I wasn't as comfortable with made me learn more and then help me apply it to my preferred way of writing.
• Voice. This is always tricky and sometimes alusive for most writers. Voice is hard. But in the class, I've found the importance of my own character's voice, and what makes it different from my own and any other character I've written.
• The middle sucks for pretty much everyone, which is just comforting to me to know I'm not alone.

Anything interesting you've learned  lately? Have you had the opportunity to take a formal class in creative writing?

I'm going contemporary

This week has been crazy. I won't bore you with details, but it was crazy! *Long deep breath*

One thing that gave me major stress-out was on Tuesday, I had my first class for English 320R: Writing for Children and Adolescents. Yay, right? Nope. Not yay. You see, the section I'd signed up for consists of only writing picture books. That's all. I'm mainly a YA writer with occasional MG ideas. The class description had said that the class would consist of writing picture books, MG, and YA. I was excited to try a hand at picture books, but not the whole semester.

There's one other section for the class. I went to check on it, and saw there was a seat. Now that's a yay! However, adding that class would put me over 18 credit hours, which isn't allowed, so I can't add the class. No problem, I'd just drop my current class. After I do that, I go to add the section I want and it says that I need a permission to add code and to get that from the professor to add.

Not yay.

I also can't add back the class I dropped (I still need this class as part of my major, too, so it's important I have it) and find that since the professor is letting more people take the class than people are allowed to sign up for, I can't add the class, unless I get the add code. And how awkward would it be to go up to that professor and say, "Yeah...I dropped your class...but now I need it...could you give me an add code?"

Not yay.

But I emailed the professor for the section I want, she gave me the add code, and I have my first class today! :) Yay!

My professor also emailed me the syllabus, and it turns out this is focusing on contemporary MG/YA. I'm a little nervous about this. While I have tried to start contemporary books before, except for one case, I failed. I do have one idea, and I don't need a full MS to pass the class, but I'd still like to try and go as far as I can with it.

So, to contemporary writers out there, I have this question for you: how do you come up with ideas for your books? I'm not talking about a spark idea, but everything that keeps the story moving. What do you do for ideas?