05.03.09
In general, a conference
When I started writing over 15 years ago, I didn’t tell anyone. It was a challenge to myself to see if I could have a story idea, start a book with it, and then finish said book. My teenage sons quickly found me out because I would be hurrying to finish writing just as they came home from school, but they kept my secret. I’d wager it was because they were male, my sons, and thought nothing would ever come of it, so why bother telling anyone, much less their dad.
But about the time I finished that book, The Mermaid and the Eagle, I saw an article in the regional paper about a writer’s conference in Dallas. It was three days long and not something I could disappear to between breakfast and supper. In order to go, I’d have to confess what I’d been up to between 1 and 3 each afternoon.
There was minor condescension, but I got to go with nothing else but a ‘be careful on the road.’
It was a general writer’s conference put on by a Dallas-Ft. Worth writers’ group which I believe is no longer functioning. I know the conference fell by the wayside in the mid-90s. It was a true eye-opener for me, a series of ah-ha moments wherein I learned I didn’t know anything except I had the constitution to finish a book.
I went to two others, then switched to all-romance conferences when I joined Romance Writers of America in 1996. I immersed myself in the myth and story-telling of my genre, all the while acknowledging that basic craft and writing techniques were the same across all genres.
I just returned from the Oklahoma Writer’s Federation conference. It served a general audience and included many sessions I would never receive from RWA: freelancing, regional magazines, travel writing. Since, as well as writing romance, I now freelance for a regional magazine, McKinney Living, I found all of these to be very interesting and helpful.
I think I’m going to have to get out more.