Conferences
This October I will be attending two conferences.
The first is the Write on the Sound a local conference. I will drive to this on both Saturday and Sunday. I’ve never attended this conference before so I am not entirely sure what to expect. I am very excited however and I hope to meet other local writers. This is also a smaller event – limited to 200 people then any I have attended before.
I will also be attending the Surrey International Writers’ Conference at the end of October. I attended last year and met amazing people and learned a great deal about the industry and writing process. I am looking forward to attending again this year.
I know that I will get a lot out of both these events, and in truth I expect them to become annual installments on my calendar. However I also plan to limit myself to these and only these two.
Why?
Well for starters they cost money. If I am ever published I have no doubt that it will be in part due to the connections I made and knowledge I gain at these events. At the moment though I am not earning anything from my writing. So that imposes a limit in itself.
Also I don’t want to become a conference junkie. Someone I met at last years SWIC advised me against that. As an established author she told me she sees some people who come to these events year after year and never make progress in their writing. They enjoy the conference “high” and they make big plans but then go home and don’t do the single most important thing… write.
She challenged me not to come to SWIC this year unless I brought a finished manuscript with me to pitch.
That is one of the reasons I set goals for myself this year in the form of new years resolutions.
I have to admit I am not ready to pitch the project I have been working on this year. However I have two months to get it ready and I plan to be. I have a pitch line ready and the project is in review so in the next two months I will be focusing on writing and working hard to get my story as clean and ready as it is humanly possible to make it so I am ready to pitch at SWIC.
Maybe I will see some of you at one of these events.
Happy Writing Everyone.