To Conference or Not to Conference?

When I finished the draft of my first manuscript, I drove to Office Depot to have it printed.  I wanted to hold three and half years of work in my hands. It was exhilarating to flip through those 99,600 words, and yet, I had no idea what to do with them.

Two months later, the universe threw me in the path of a published author who was kind enough to answer my questions. Can I get published by querying hundreds of agents? (Long shot.) Should I hire a book editor? (Yes, if you can afford it.) How do I find a writer’s group? (That’s a tough one, start looking!) My new author friend imparted to me important advice. She said, “Throw yourself in the right direction and someone will catch you.”

She also told me to start going to writer’s conferences.

And so, I registered for the Association of Writers & Writing Programs Conference in March 2018. With every workshop and agent panel I attended in the mammoth sized Tampa Convention Center, I fell in love with the buzz surrounding the business of writing. For the first time, I felt like a “real” author.

Armed with new energy, I spent the rest of that year revising my manuscript. Then, for the first half of 2019, I researched and queried agents. Requests for submissions came in, and I waited. “Sorry, I have to pass” emails came in, and I deflated. I realized it was time for another conference. It was time to find another direction.

The 2019 Florida Writers Conference left me with two invaluable impressions:

1. I am not alone.  When I started writing five years ago, I quickly learned that it was the hardest thing I had done so far in my life (and I have two post graduate degrees, a twenty-year marriage, two children and a schizophrenic dog). I experienced challenges with time, outlining, story structure, dialogue, and character development.

Yet, my biggest obstacle wasn’t on the page, it was in my mind.

Along with my computer, copies of my manuscript, and comfortable shoes, it was self-doubt that I packed in my suitcase and took to the conference. The night before I was scheduled to meet with an editor, I dreamt that I had gone to the meeting with nothing but my white hotel towel wrapped around me. I woke up with my heart pounding and a regret that I had signed up for the interview. In the morning, at my breakfast table of strangers, I shared my dream with two tablemates. With similar stories of anxiety, they offered empathy and we laughed together. They understood.

For my first face-to-face meeting with an industry professional, I talked too much, struggled with my synopsis, and was overall the epitome of an amateur author, but I did it. The editor requested the full manuscript. Thanks, “blended genre” table breakfast friends, for getting me there.

2. Writers are different than readers. I learned that while the feedback I had from beta-readers was useful, feedback from writers was priceless. Writers read and critique like writers. They see things that an ordinary reader would miss and what an author too close to their own work can’t see. I hope I was as helpful to my fellow critique workshop participants as they were to me.

It is clear to me now why writer’s conferences are packed with both unpublished and published authors. We all need fuel to keep writing page after page, alone at our desks.  Joining the community, hearing about other writer’s successes and failures — it renews our faith. For me, it reminds me that if I keep throwing myself in the right direction, I will, someday, get caught.