I am super excited this week. I decided to do something just for me,. I joined one of the local writing chapters and attended my very first official writing conference.
As of last Wednesday I am officially a member of the Oquirrh Mountain Chapter of the League of Utah Writers. I missed their monthly meeting last week, but I did attend the Spring Conference -League of Utah Writers on Saturday. The conference was held at Salt Lake Community College. Each writer was able to choose one of seven offered classes each hour (five total classes for the afternoon). There were so many to choose from depending on where one might be in their writing journey, all of which sounded informative. However, at the end of the day I knew the ones I had chosen were the perfect ones for me right now.
I met a new writer that shared her story and encouragement to just keep writing, even when life is not ideal. She talked about setting individual goals that work for us, even if they are small, and then evaluating regularly as life changes, either up or down, and that either way is OK. What matters is that you just keep writing. While some people have the chance to sit down for days at a time and do nothing but write, for others it may be a challenge to just do a few lines a day and it may even be OK to miss a day. This writer is definitely someone I would like to know more.
In another class I found I learned as much from one of the other attendees as I did from the teacher about the joys and challenges of having a book signing. I also learned some reasons why and why not to be involved in one. During the discussion, I also learned some obstacles other authors have overcome in promoting their books during events such as Salt Lake Comic Con FanX™ .
Another class I found interesting had to do with overcoming the tendencies and traits of an introvert as it relates to public speaking and promotion of our writing. The teacher had a very engaging informative presentation, and I left believing I could do most of the skills he was encouraging us to be open to developing.
Another class I attended started out with ideas for uncommon ways of promoting our writing. Because I have to keep up on some changes and developments in technology as part of my daily employment, I was able to follow most of what this teacher was presenting as far as research. The thing I came away with was the feeling it was OK to use unusual ways of advertising or exposing your work to new readers.
The final class I chose was on "Finding Your Muse." The main encouragement I got was to not feel afraid to try different genres or paths in writing. I also felt more inspired to be totally aware of everything and everyone around me, because you never know where an inspiration, character, scene may come from. I also felt empowered to take more opportunities to find alone or reflective time to reflect on a story, idea or thoughts about whatever I am writing at the moment.
These few hours, listening to and sharing thoughts of other writers, and learning about the writing they have completed or are in the process of working on, was probably as rewarding for me as my sister, Karla, who is a carver, attending a woodcarving show.
