I’m already thinking about what to do before RWA® Nationals.
So many recorded sessions, so little time. Actually, the second part isn’t exactly true. I have all the time in the world. I’m referring to the RWA National Conference recordings. I have lots of time because I don’t have to listen to them all at once. In fact, I am looking forward to parsing out the listening as motivation over the next year until I go to the next one. I’m very sorry the Michael Hauge session isn’t on the flash drive. I understand it was last year and I didn’t buy those (sigh).
There are 141 recorded sessions. I can eliminate the Chat ones before I even start going through the list. I’m not going to spend any time on the self-publishing ones right now because I’m not interested in that right now. I know some of the Ladies are interested and I’m sure they are focusing on those in the same way that I am focusing on where I am in the process right now. I am interested in the craft, research, and motivation tracks now.
I have started my collage for Antigone Rising so the “Art Journaling 101” might be a good place to start. I had some critique comments about diversity in my story so I could listen to “Diversity in Romance.” I’m just beginning to identify my core story so I can wait on “Adapting Your Core Story to Sell,” although it might help me focus my story as I finish it and start the edits. I have a lot of law and order in my story so “Law and Order for the Writer” might be a good one. And I’m only down to #28 on the list of recordings.
My stumbling block is how to listen to them. They are on a flash drive. I haven’t given much thought to how I’m going to transfer these tracks to something more usable. I want something mobile. Somethintg I can listen to in the car or while walking, or jogging, or gardening. I have an old iPod but have no idea if it still works. I haven’t even downloaded iTunes to my new home computer to see if they’ll translate.
Did you get the recordings? What is your plan of attack? What options do you have for listening to them?
Eight Ladies Writing 
I got the recordings for the last three conferences, and I love them. I tend to go back to them when I need help with a specific task – I listened to the ones on query letters when i was preparing my query, and the ones on pitching when I was working on my pitch. Sometimes I’ll listen to a chat or whatever else is top of mind if I have an hour to spare in the evening. I just plug and play them on my laptop.
Do you work while you listen? I was thinking I would listen during idle time. When I’m on my computer, I’m usually working so I don’t think I’d really be listening to learn. I’m afraid if I listened while on my computer, it would be background noise and I wouldn’t get much out of it.
Won’t you be able to just copy the files to a device? I have no clue, really. Good luck with that!
I’ve never bought the tapes, I’m not sure why. Maybe because I thought I’d never listen to them. But maybe I should try them; I know I missed a lot of good sessions. I’ll have to check and see if they’re still on sale. Like Jilly, I won’t mind listening from my laptop.
I’m not sure – I haven’t done a thing with them. I’m sure I can get them into iTunes and load them on my iPod. I just don’t know if my iPod still works. We’ll see.
I won a set as a door prize at the TGN retreat, but they’ve never arrived. I’ll have to check into that!
You definitely need to look into that. Tons of publishing sessions and I know that is where you are right now.
Michille, if you have iTunes, you can import them, then create a playlist (that’s what I did). I tend to listen to mine when I’m taking the dog for a walk or driving. Not good if you want to actively take notes or something, but if you just want to get a feel for what they’re talking about (so you know whether to come back to it later), that’s a great way to do it.
If you don’t have iTunes, you can simply copy them to a location on your computer and double-click on them to listen. I’m not sure how it works getting music on a non-Apple phone, but I’m confident if you dug around on the internet, you’d find instructions.
I have bought the recordings every year, but last year I completely spaced out on copying them to my computer. So I have a BUNCH that I’ve downloaded recently. Between that and listening to Georgette Heyer, I have PLENTY to keep me company when walking the dog or in the car. Now if it would just cool down a bit so I could actually get out there….
I’ll have to download iTunes and see if my iPod still works. That would be the easiest. Because listening to them when I’m walking or gardening is exactly what I want to do, mainly for motivation. I rarely look back at my notes from Nationals so I doubt it would do me much good to take notes while listening. I do expect that after listening, that when I get back to my desk, I’ll add things to my to-do list for my story.
Wow, that’s a whole lotta listening!
I don’t know if this would work or not, but when I want to copy things from a flash drive to my android phone, I use my Windows-OS computer. This is a step-by-step:
1. Turn on computer. Connect phone to computer with USB cable (that came with my charger — it works two ways), and put flash drive in a different USB port.
2. I would click on the round windows icon in my tool bar, find Computer and click on it, then find the G: section or whatever the USB file shows up as, and click on that. Then I would copy the files I wanted. (Click on them, right click, copy, or just click on them and hit CTRL C.)
3. Then I would navigate to my phone’s files, and probably drop them in a podcast file that I already have. (I use VLC to listen to podcasts, music and videos). By drop, I mean I would click on the file to open it, and then right click, paste OR just click on it and hit CTRL V.)
It may take a little time to complete the transfer, depending on how big of a file we’re talking about.
That’s awesome, Michaeline. Now I don’t have to look up how to do it. I have an android phone so this should work. I thought I was finished with those empty hours when I was waiting for my teen-aged son while he was at practice because he got his license which meant I was clear and had extra time for me. But a weird situation has left him unable to drive and me waiting again (and thankful for it) so I can make good writing use for those idle moments.
I hope it works out — all of it.
My phone has become “old” (it’s less than two years old! I wanted to get seven years out of it!! I guess that means I’m too old and cheap), and my data plan isn’t enough, apparently. The internet gets extremely slow at the end of the month. So, I need to download more stuff and load it into my phone instead of streaming everything. I don’t want to change data plans or anything in the middle of the contract — they gouge out both of your eyeballs when they do that, in addition to the normal procedure of just taking an arm and a leg.
(-: I’ve got a love/hate relationship with my phone company. Can you tell?