I had the great pleasure of attending this past weekend's SCBWI British Isles annual conference, Great Expectations: The Power of Story in a Changing World. And what a weekend it was!

I was there with several people from my monthly writing group, along with a couple of authors I have been mentoring. I've asked everyone to submit to a sort of group blog on the sessions they attended. But while we all gather our notes (I'll hopefully post more detailed reports on Friday), Andy Dickenson has shown his journalistic speed and professionalism by writing a fantastic summary. Short and to the point. So here it is:

Conferences, for me, are a mix of contradictions. Firstly, the immediate impression that you are surrounded by others all chasing the same goal as you, that they're actually your competition, before the realisation dawns that they're all lovely and friendly and could actually help. Secondly, sitting in overly air-conditioned lecture theatres being told that it takes passion and instinct to survive in this field, that there are no rules, only for another lecture to prescribe some definite rules you should follow if you want success in it.

And so it was at the SCBWI, where a morning session with the wonderful Frank Cottrell Boyce extolled the virtues of not planning too much, "write without a safety net," and having the courage to keep scenes that served no other purpose than entertaining your reader IF they're good enough: "if it's good it stays" -- was followed by an afternoon with the equally invigorating Anthony McGowan postulating on a graph on which you can plot your novel, and software which could help you do it. Make your protagonist sympathetic. Get them to "pat the dog," he said. Before telling us a story in which he shot one through the neck with a crossbow bolt.

And then we all gathered in a school dining hall, festooned with balloons, drank too much cheap wine, and made new friends. While some of us also stalked editors. And when the alcohol levels were at their highest we joined in celebrating 26 among us who had, indeed, achieved our goals. Who'd actually got published. And I couldn't help thinking if we wanted the same thing then we were in the right place. That this was the right club to be in.

So, what did I learn? That we're in this together and that through a mixture of drive, talent and the right philosophy, we'll make it, I guess (or hope). And that hope is an important word. Because to paraphrase Mr Cottrell Boyce: "You should give them hope. That's what you should pass on, even though you sometimes have to take them to the darkest places to do that."

—Andy Dickenson, Production Journalist, ITV Meridian