The Most Romantic Place on Earth...

 

Well that has to be an RWNZ chapter meeting, doesn't it?

I was fortunate enough to be the guest speaker at the Auckland chapter meeting of Romance Writers of New Zealand this weekend.  What a terrific crowd!  I was made very welcome and given lots of delicious food to snack on!

RWNZ is a fantastic organisation for writers.  Their monthly chapter meetings have a range of speakers that cover all kinds of writing related topics, their newsletters are a wealth of information, and their annual conference is a hugely beneficial event with writers, agents, editors, and experts from around the world bringing their knowledge and experience for members to learn from.  Their next conference is at Waipuna hotel, August 14-17 and would be well worth attending for any writer wanting to improve his or her craft - whether or not they actually write romance.
Romance writing is not my gift, but I've learned a lot vicariously from RWNZ as a result of having a partner who is a member so presenting to the group was a good way for me to give back to a valuable organisation and key writers' resource in NZ.

The entire group were a pleasure to talk to and I'm grateful for all the members who came up to talk to me after my presentation.  It's always a thrill to hear that people have enjoyed something I've done.  And thank you to Pam, the organiser, for arranging the opportunity and for sending out the following comments to members afterward:

"Well ... golly! What a fantastic talk from Darian Smith and a massive turn-out too. Thirty-five of us crammed into the tennis pavilion for the worth of a mini-conference. Thank you so much Darian for giving us such an in-depth insight into the why-layers we can introduce for our characters and the stories that result and the ready sources of conflict – all from an understanding of psychology. Why do we act the way we do in a variety of situations? And for those who missed out – one of our members was in labour; best excuse ever – Darian has very kindly agreed to write up a summary of his talk for H2H. We had a lot of questions for him which he answered readily and which engendered more questions. We would love to have him take a seminar for us at a Conference. Maybe 2015?"

 You know what?  I'd love that too!