After attending LTUE for the second year in a row, my conviction that I'm doing the right thing in taking my time with this story was confirmed.
Having now finished the rewrite of book 1, it is now in the hands of a good friend. One of the best things about having this person read it is that he's going to be able to give me feedback from a reader's perspective. He's is not a writer, but he is an avid fantasy reader. And after speaking with him about the specific fantasy stories he's enjoyed, I think mine is going to be a good fit for him.
After LTUE, my Twitter life has exploded. :-) I rediscovered TweetDeck and I think I'm in love. (http://www.tweetdeck.com/) I was able to keep up on notable quotes from sessions I was unable to attend and still get a lot out of the ones I did.
The first thing I did when I got back was begin to clear my work load. My day job is very demanding and I have allowed it to take over much of my free time (working for a non-profit makes me more willing to work extra hours).
My friend Corey came to me a couple of months ago and asked me if I wanted to go to a symposium in Provo, Utah.
My first reaction was something like, "What's in Provo, Utah?"
She had been watching Dan Wells' video series from YouTube about the seven-step story writing process. (See my links section) The videos had been recorded at a previous LTUE Symposium.