Conference Recap

Wow, I sure love writer’s conferences. This was a big deal for me because I was pitching my novel for the first time. It was a great experience (I may blog about my thoughts on pitching later on).

Why do I go to conferences?

I go to learn, but really most of the information can be found on-line or from wise critique partners.

Yet it is different. A conference is the one place where things are explained clearly and all in one place. It is interactive, meaning you can go up to the presenter after the class and ask questions, get clarification.

Plus, there are other writers at conferences.

Writers are my most favorite type of people. I love their imaginations and how much they adore books. I love the jokes writers make because they know words. I love the hushed awe that overcomes them over a well-worded sentence.

Writer’s conferences are the best place to meet other writers and we need other writers.

They are the critique partners that help your books be better. They are the shoulders to cry on when rejections come. You can bounce ideas off them without them thinking you are totally insane. They are the people who allow you to critique their books (even if you secretly just want to critique their stuff to read an awesome story before anyone else). Fellow writers are the ones who follow your blog. The friends you make at writer’s conferences are the ones who buy your books even though they’ve already read it because they remember when you were struggling through the first draft and have seen how awesome story has grown. They’re the ones who tweet about your book and share it with their friends. They’re the ones who write awesome books that you are dying share with the world.

A writer would be nothing without friends and a writer’s conference is the perfect place to find them.

A-Z Challenge Reflections

Wow, I knew the A-Z Blogging challenge was going to be tough, but I had no idea how intense it would be. Of course, me being one who enjoys a challenge, I loved every minute of it.

I enjoyed coming up with new topics every day. Some of the topics ended up being a bit quirky, but that’s what made them great.

Visiting new blogs and meeting new bloggers was the best thing ever. There are so many sweet, creative people out there. I loved finding all the awesome blogs.

Here’s what I learned.

1.      How to spell “challenge”. Some words, I know how to consistently misspell. That was one of them until now (sort of). Thanks to all of the spelling champions who didn’t harass me about it in the blog labels.

2.      How to be comfortable with my writing. Normally, I’ll write a blog post and then let it simmer for a few days (or a week) to make sure it is just right. But blogging every day meant there wasn’t time to second guess my topic choice or spend a bajillion years editing it to perfection.

3.      My ABCs. Yes, I already knew this, but it’s nice to have confirmation that I haven’t forgotten the good old lessons from kindergarten. I was worried that I’d miss a letter or get some swapped. There were some near misses around the r-s-t as I almost got ahead of myself, but as far as I know, every letter is in order.

4.      The importance of connecting. I spent a good amount of time exploring other blogs and meeting new people. While my work-in-progress novel didn’t progress as much as I would have liked, I did get some writing done, but most importantly, I made new friends in the blogging world.

How was your A-Z blogging challenge?