The last day at the SCBWI LA conference culminated in more excellent inspirational speeches, sage advice, and practical applications. A few I took away:

Dinah Stevenson on the recession: “I’m suggesting you concentrate on what you can control–your work” and quoting Mark Twain “The difference between the right word and the almost-right word is the difference between lightening and a lightening bug.”

Jenn Bailey on the expectations of the Twitter community: “Be accessible. Be relevant. Be timely. Be genuine.”

Kathleen Duey on the six things she does when she returns home from a conference:

• write down the conversations you had because you probably didn’t take notes on conversations and those will be the first things you forget;
• annotate your notes to help you remember some of the “connective tissue”;
• go through all of the business cards you collected and remind yourself why you took the card and contact everyone who gave you a card;
• stay in touch with people you met at the conference;
• put gems on your wall;
• fiddle with the things you were taught (like Twitter, Facebook, Amazon’s Author Central…)

Lastly, I learned the critical importance of being an SCBWI member if you want to be successful in the children’s book writing business. Kathleen Duey says, “SCBWI has become the farm team” and I agree with her. Through SCBWI we not only learn the mechanics of submitting manuscripts and portfolios to editors and agents, but we come together as a community to teach and inspire each other.Thanks to the tremendous faculty at SCBWI LA 2009, and to Lin Oliver and Steve Mooser for their vision.