While at an event, there is possibly nothing as painful as having people ask stupid/irrelevant/a million questions.

Now, I know I'm not the only person this bothers as when I sit with like-minded friends we roll our eyes and sigh when people ask, yet again, those questions.

Questions you should never, ever ask authors/writers at an event:

And so it goes. There are approximately 29485454892 more questions in this category that I haven't covered.

Here's why people like me don't appreciate those questions:

Town Hall Conference.

Number of proper meals eaten in the last two days: none.

Number of new friends made: too many to count.

Number of fantastic, informative, amazing sessions gone to: all of them.

Number of times I was told off for Tweeting in sessions: once.

But let's not dwell on the silly woman who told me off for Tweeting.

(I like how this came after the first session yesterday morning where nearly all the panellists agreed you have to be nice to everyone you meet as you never know who they are. Now I'm not saying I'm a *somebody* as I'm very clearly a *nobody* but I am a nobody with a Twitter account and it took approximately one minute for floods of Tweets to come in, supporting me and my Tweeting the festival (even one from EWF themselves saying they support Tweeting during events). ...

I thought the first panel of the Town Hall conference deserved a post of its own; the five festival ambassadors giving seven pieces of advice they wishes they had at the beginning of their careers.

All were interesting, engaging, funny in their own ways and above all else, had stellar advice.

My best bud Emily Maguire went first (I feel I can say that, given last night :P) and her seven tips were:

Christy Dena

We came, we saw, we talked, we drank and ate free food - as all good writers do.   Tonight was the Artists Party at the Emerging Writers' Festival, and the day started with promise: you know, torrential downpours, freezing gushes of wind, car windows so foggy you can barely see out of them and then you yell at get angry at ghost cars behind you who DON'T PUT THEIR DAMN LIGHTS ON and you can't see them and almost crash into them.   Yeah, the day was fun.   But the night was even better!   I prayed and prayed to the Rain Gods that it wouldn't rain as a) I didn't want to get my pretty dress or jacket wet and b) it's about a ten minute walk from where I parked my car (god bless free car parking, thank you father!) and that's a long ...