The 40th Summer Conference of the SCBWI is over. I’m at the airport lounge looking out over the airport, seeing friends leave the hazy city that shimmers in the background. It makes me sad that I have to leave, knowing that it will take quite a while before I will see most of my friends and my mentors again. While writers work in solitude and –usually– love the quietness, just like I do, there is nothing more energizing than being around kindred spirits. We’ve shared a lot these past week: break-throughs, new publications, leaps-forward, staggering discoveries, stirring workshops, riveting keynotes and above all continuing friendships and the making of new ones.
Being at the conference as the Regional Advisor of the Netherlands chapter was an exciting experience. It brought me to the very heart of what SCBWI is about: the exchange of knowledge between writers, illustrators, editors, publishers, agents, librarians, educators, booksellers and others involved with literature for young people.
I loved every minute of it.
It is too early to give a full account of the conference and its meetings, parties and four days crammed with keynotes and workshops. It has to sink in a bit more. What I do know and what will stay with me forever is the workshop by author Bruce Coville. He told us to do just that what scares me most: leave my comfort zone. What he literally said was: “If you see a cliff, jump off it. It’s the only way to grow wings.”
I so suck at jumping off cliffs. I need to know where I go, where I will end up. I need to plan and plot my way forward in life and in my writing life, but Bruce’s words hit a chord that made me sing inside –thankfully inside only, because I really, really can’t sing without shattering all the windows in a four-mile radius. I know that I will have to jump of cliffs to get most out of my writing life and from now on I will. I might hesitate at first, but in the end I am convinced that I will jump.
You might wonder why I would take that risk. I tell you: I can take that risk because I know about the solid and warm net that’s down every cliff. That net is SCBWI, a net knotted of the most wonderful writers and illustrators in the world.
Thank you Lin Oliver and Steve Mooser for jumping off that cliff 40 years ago!
Tagged: Books, Bruce Coville, Lin Oliver, Mina Witteman, SCBWI, Steve Mooser
Nice one Mina. Jump jump jump jump jump…….:-) Let me know what your experience is going to be once you jump and may be I will jump after you. 🙂
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Aw, Vish. I thought you’d already be down there to catch me.
-Mina
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Sounds like you had a wonderful time Mina! I’m not a cliff jumper either and I’m wondering if jumping off a cliff might be parallel to following your passion, writing about something that is really important to you. That I can do!
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It was a wonderful conference, Rosemary. I missed you, though! Next year?
I guess following your passion, that is writing, is kind of jumping of a cliff, yes. And I know you can do that!
-Mina
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Great reminder! I need to be better about jumping, too. Glad you had such a good time at SCBWI. Can’t wait to hear more!
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We can start with small cliffs, right? More detailed accounts will follow after my time zone battle, Caryn.
-Mina
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I like to know where I’m going too, Mina. But as I once heard the great Kiwi/Australian humorist John Clarke* say, ‘In the arts, by the time you’re doing something quite successfully and starting to make decent money from it, the whole thing’s stuffed’.
*For a sample of Clarke and Dawe on the European debt crisis…see
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That is so funny, Richard, funny and totally true. Thankfully I still have a couple of cliffs to go before I’ll be quite successful and some more before I’ll make any money. Let’s just hope my wings will grow pretty quickly. 🙂
-Mina
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So glad it was a rewarding experience for you, Mina. One of these days I hope I get to go to the SCBWI LA conference too. And yes, jumping off cliffs is terrifying some times, but how else can we fly! 🙂
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It’s absolutely worth the trip, Sheryl! Hope to see you there one day.
-Mina
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Jump off that cliff, Mina:)
It was so lovely to meet you at the conference.
Dee x
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If you jump with me, Dee. Loved to meet you in real life, too!
-Mina
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“If you see a cliff, jump off it. It’s the only way to grow wings.” Wow!
So brilliant and thru.
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You should’ve been there, Winny. A room brimming with Bruce Coville energy.
-Mina
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Missed being in LA this year and seeing you Mina!
Funny – I’ve been learning animation and as it happens was drawing characters jumping off a cliff. Lots of wonderful ways to do it – in fiction, at least.
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What a coincidence, Bridget. I figured there are lots of ways to get off a cliff. I’ll start with a regular jump, though, before I do anything as drastic as, say, dive down head first. 😉
-Mina
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