So What happened at the Writer’s Conference?

So I’ve been yapping about this writer’s conference for months, Facebooking and Tweeting about it for weeks, and now it’s all over, and hopefully you are all biting your nails to find out what happened! I’m actually going to write several general blogs about my experience for people preparing for a writer’s conference, but this blog is more about my personal experience.

Nail biting dragon - he's that anxious to read this blog.

So you know how exhausted and horrified everyone is during the American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance Hollywood auditions? I think this might have been comparable. You get very little sleep, reoccurring blasts of nerves and adrenaline, and can be at risk of crashing if you don’t make an effort to hydrate and eat. =) Still, super fun.

An Overview: Workshops, Networking, Agents/Editors.

Workshops

The conference consisted of a lot of learning (workshops) some of which were really enlightening and some that were just the basics on a topic I already knew about thus, blah. For me the most informative sessions were about using blogging and social media to build an audience (Platform) before I have a book out. 

I also learned a lot about freelance editors and self publishing. Unfortunately, I got less out of the craft classes although the classes on conflict, characters, and historical fiction were really good. Although I didn’t get a lot out of those classes, I’m sure other people have. I’ve just read up a lot on craft and am beyond the basics. I will be blogging about some of what I learned so stay tuned.

Networking

The networking was, for me, the number one best thing I got from the conference. I met a secret service agent, a dancer, freelance editors, small business owners, freelance journalists, agented authors, published authors, somebody who does something very complicated with satellites, and many, many more interesting people and they were all writers. I met people who live near me! I never expected that because I live in a small town but I did. It was amazing to meet other writers, published, self-published, and unpublished and they were all really genuine and dedicated to their work, which was amazing. I exchanged as many business cards as possible and fully intend on contacting every single person by email, Facebook, and Twitter.

In addition to making some new contacts, I also met some people I think I will remain close with in the future, and I even got invited to a new writing group online with people I went out to dinner with.

But my absolute favorite part was helping two people craft their one-line pitches. It’s so hard to boil your book down into one sentence, and the people I helped were so grateful they both gave me hugs and one even suggested I start a business and I am considering it. I saw one of these people after their pitch sessions, and she said it went really well and thanked me. It was one of the best moments in the conference for me.

Agents and editors.

This part was not as much as I was hoping for but kind of what I expected. The conference includes social events specifically for networking and a lot of people expected the attending agents and editors to be present. I only went to one of these events, but there were only a few professionals there and most of them ran away before I could talk to them. I understand why they wouldn’t want to come—in the world of unpublished authors, these people become like celebrities in our minds. They are the gatekeepers to publishing, and we all so desperately want to be published, so they would probably be bombarded at those events. 

Still, I met one agent at the social event I attended, and she was really excited about my idea. Plus you also could talk to the professionals after their workshops and of course during the agent speed dating, which will be the topic of an entire blog.

Overall, I had a blast! I met so many amazing people, learned so much about the industry and business of publishing, and completely plan on attending more conferences in the future. A wonderful experience!

If you have any questions or comments please use the comment feature or email me. Don’t forget to subscribe to my blog. I will be blogging about this conference for a while.