All week I’ve been meaning to share a little about the Iowa Christian Writers’ Conference I attended last week. And all week this, that, and the other thing has kept me from doing it. But I promise that today and tomorrow will be about the conference.
The conference, which is held at Riverview Bible Camp in Cedar Falls, is organized by author Shelly Beach. She spoke a few times, but the main speakers were authors Tracy Groot and Dennis Hensley.
Tracy is a fiction writer with a passion for research, not just the book kind, but the experiential kind also – living what your characters will be doing. Consequently, one of her sessions was a “research field trip” to the cemetery adjacent to Riverview Camp. On the way there, Tracy asked us to take notes of what we saw, smelled, felt and heard. She said we were going to meet someone in the cemetery and could ask him any questions that came to mind.
Imagine everyone’s surprise when we stumbled upon Dennis Hensley (aka Doc) leaning against a tombstone, playing the part of an elderly widower who spent several hours each day at his wife’s gravesite. A flashlight, jumper cables and a croquet mallet were arranged beside the woman’s tombstone, and Doc had a story about each item along with complete details about his wife’s appearance, her employment history, her family and their children.
We were all amazed, but I was agog. Why? Because I knew something most of the others didn’t. Tracy and Doc had cooked up their scheme just the night before. And Doc took off for the cemetery only a 20 minute before the rest of us. In that short time, he searched the cemetery for a tombstone of a recently deceased woman whose husband was still living. Once he found what he was looking for, he had only a few moments to cook up an Irish accent and Celtic history to match the names on the headstone.
How could he make it look so easy? No doubt, his natural talent, a deep knowledge of history and a creative mind, stood him in good stead. But the main reason he could pull it off was this: Doc Hensley has spent years honing his craft. He is committed to his writing, intense, focused, constantly challenging himself to improve and grow.
Tracy’s research field trip taught me so much. I left the cemetery with a notebook full of writing ideas and an awareness of how much remains to be learned. But most of all, I left grateful for writers who are ahead of me on this writing journey, but kindly paused to show me and so many others a few tricks of the trade.
So top of the morning to the three of ya – Shelly and Tracy and Doc. And thank you for all you did last week.
