OCW Weekend

This will be a quick post this morning, as I'm heading to the beach in just a few minutes. I know ... it's a rough life! I get to go back to the beach house where John took me on our Mystery Weekend last month. My parents were planning on going with us, but they've both been sick with colds and won't be able to make it, We'll have to try to get them over there at a later time.

Friday afternoon Christina and I, along with our dear friend and fellow critique group member, Miriam, drove down to Eugene to be ready to attend the OCW (Oregon Christian Writers) conference the following day. What made this day especially fun was that we were slated for a tour of Harvest House Publishers, given by our own Kim Moore. (We call her our own, because we don't want to share her! What's really funny is that she's turned us down three or four times, and yet continues to believe in us and care about us. Just a really special person in our lives.) Another member of our critique group, Kristen, met us there.

Harvest House is an amazing place. Huge--with lots of offices, a distribution warehouse that looks larger than a Costco, and books everywhere you look. It's like letting a drug addict loose in an opium field! Kim must have seen how badly we needed a fix after spending an hour there, as she graciously invited us to each pick out a book to take home. Thanks, Kim!

We didn't want the good times to stop, so took Kim out to dinner at a cool barbecue place called The Hole in the Wall. We'd eaten there last year and really enjoyed it, so now it's a tradition. Kim was an entertaining dinner guest, full of stories and insights about the writing world. After dinner she invited us over to her house to meet her well-loved cats.

We spent the night at Kristen's grandma's house. Rita capped our evening with pie and tea. Of course we stayed up talking 'til nearly midnight. Do women ever run out of things to talk about?

Saturday morning, after many wrong turns, (none of us had brought directions along) we finally arrived at Northwest Christian University for the conference. It always feels like walking into a family reunion when we attend these events, as we only get to see most of these people at the conferences, which are months apart from each other. Cindy Martinusen Coloma was the keynoter and did a remarkable job. She spoke on "The Call of a Writer" and "The Fictive Life." She had very interesting presentations and I took lots of notes.

Mid-afternoon, Christina and I had the privilege of teaching a class called "Writing in Tandem." We had a good-sized group, with lots of interaction and participation. (I think the candy we brought helped!) It was fun to present things we've learned through our years of writing together.

I realized when I got home that evening that I wasn't tired out. Usually a busy weekend will make me feel draggy, but I think the teaching energized me. But in spite of that, I'm anxious to get to the beach and relax!