Writers Conference Kickstart Time. Spring into summer is conference time. Small retreats and huge gatherings punctuate this period of the year for many of us. We pack up our notebooks and our hopes and head for a convocation of scribes.
Most of us want to find a kickstart to getting our work published or better published. But I do not believe that is the most important thing we gain from these gatherings, whether they take place in a grand hotel or a modest cabin or somewhere in between.
The most important thing we find is each other. We make the most of a writers’ conference by maximizing that discovery. We writers are natural allies. That is so deeply true because we understand one another from inside our own writers’ lives and souls.
We understand… what it’s like to labor in the formidable publishing marketplace… what a struggle it is to get our work published and keep it published… how it feels to suffer rejection and disappointment… and the joy of our accomplishments, whether they be large or small.
Every writer needs support in these hard struggles we have chosen. We know this because we need the same support ourselves. With this knowledge comes the obligation to reach out and offer encouragement to our writer friends, the old friends we reunion with at these gatherings, and the about-to-become new friend in the hotel lobby chair next to ours.
A few sentences of kindness can be another kind of kickstart. They can be exactly what a writer colleague requires at a downbeat moment of her career, while requiring little more on our part than a few upbeat moments of being nice.
Our success dreams make us nice to the max to attending agents, editors and instructors. We line up to pitch our projects. We take copious, almost worshipful notes at their presentations. We long to recruit them as our allies on the inside of the publishing world.
In the meantime, we mustn’t forget to nurture our allies inside the writing world. Give what you can. A word of advice, an attentive ear, a shared laugh, a hug. As you scurry to workshops and appointments, take a moment to touch an author ally with a bit of being nice. My guess is you will experience a lot of feeling good in return. That good feeling is the true essence of Writers Conference Kickstart Time.
Note: The photos in this post are from conferences I was blessed to attend 1994 – 2018. Alice Orr – www.aliceorrbooks.com
A Wrong Way Home – Alice Orr’s Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 1 – is a FREE eBook HERE. Enjoy!
Alice’s latest novel – A Time of Fear & Loving – Riverton Road Romantic Suspense Series Book 5 – is available HERE.
Praise for A Time of Fear & Loving: “Alice Orr is the queen of ramped-up stakes and page-turning suspense.” “Warning. Don’t read before bed. You won’t want to sleep.” “The tension in this novel is through the roof.” “I never want an Alice Orr book to end.” “The best one yet!” “Budding romance sizzles in the background until it ignites with passion.”
Find all of Alice’s books HERE.
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