Why Are YOU Going to a Writer’s Conference?
For the next couple of weeks on Tuesday & Thursdays we’ll be focusing on conference preparation here at Writer…Interrupted.
About eight years ago, I took the first step toward publication. I attended my first writer’s conference. I was young, determined, and naive enough to have the confidence to get on a plane and out of my comfort zone because I believed I had a story worth publishing.
It wasn’t until I was on the plane to Glorietta in Santa Fe, New Mexico that I realized exactly how scared I was. I distinctly remember the moment I put on my game face and determined to be an extrovert. I gazed out the window, worrying about having to push out of my shell and said “Game on.” (Yes, I was a big Survivor fan at the time,) but it was the focus I needed to play the game.
At the conference, I was focused, driven and hardly recognized my introverted self. And my strategy worked. I met with editors and pitched my heart out. I got multiple requests for multiple manuscripts (yet to be written, of course.) And a couple of months later, I received multiple rejections. If I only knew then what I knew now…I might not have gotten onto that plane at all, so maybe my naivety was a good thing!
There have been conferences since, I attended knowing I wouldn’t pitch anything, including the upcoming ACFW conference. Other conferences I felt on top of the world, and others I felt like a nobody amongst a sea of somebodies.
I remember the year I attended ACFW after I had given up writing. I still needed that writing connection so I attended ACFW and didn’t pitch a thing. I simply went to network and make friends. It was very awkward for me, a little no body, sitting with the big guys, late after classes. But I did it and prayed I didn’t look like the misfit I felt like. That was the year I met my agent Chip MacGregor and I distinctly remember him asking me what I was working on. I didn’t have an answer for him then. But three years later I did, and he signed me!
One year I chose not to attend a big conference like ACFW. Again, I had nothing to pitch since God was leading me in a different genre and I had just hit the delete button on 50,000 words! Instead, I chose to attend a couple of smaller, more intimate conferences with Susan May Warren, Chip MacGregor, Lisa Samson and Susan Meissner. There were about four students in each class and it was just the encouragement I needed to start my WIP over again.
This year I’m excited to attend ACFW in Dallas. My drive is definitely not as strong as it was that first year. I’ve been through so many ups and downs on this writing road, and I feel more settled as a author with my novella out and a contracted full length. This year I attend ACFW with many different goals and motivations. To learn, and network and reconnect with old friends and make new ones. I’m open to what God wants me to experience and hopeful that it will lead me further down the road towards my dreams!
So why are you going to conference this year? And what are you doing to prepare?
