Alright guys. Thanks for showing up for my second post in the getting started series. As you can tell by the title its about writing conferences. Now this probably isn’t step two for a beginning writing but it was one of the new things that I tried as a beginning writer. So without further ado. Writing conferences.
Getting Started: Writing Conferences
I haven’t been to a ton of writing conferences. I’ve only been to one in my whole life but I have been to this one conference 6 times. This last time that I went was my last time going to it. It’s a teen writers conference and so I won’t be able to go to it anymore starting next year. I love writing conferences. There are several reasons I would suggest going to writing conference just based off of the one that I went to. 1) You can get writing advice from published authors. 2) You can meet other writers who enjoy doing what you do. 3) You can improve your own writing abilities. 4) You can (even if for just one day) feel as if you aren’t the only weird person in the world because I promise that you aren’t.
First, You can get writing advice from published authors. At the conference that I went to (which I will post a link to the webpage down below for any teenage aspiring authors who wishes to go to it) there were quite a few authors. They were all friendly and super excited to talk to any of the young writers. This last year that I went they had several guest authors teaching workshops and selling their books. The guests this year were Rosalyn Eves, Gregg Luke, and Lisa Mangum. The keynote speaker was J. Scott Savage. All of these authors and the lovely authors who were on the planning committee who also taught workshops are amazing humans. I loved listening to each of them speak. At lunch you could stand at the back of the room and look at all the young authors from the age of 13 to 19 sitting at the tables eating lunch and mixed in with them were the authors, sitting at tables and talking to the kids. The workshops are great and my notes are spectacular. I got lots of good information and had lots of good ideas to add to my book while listening to these published authors give their advice.
Second, You can meet other writers who enjoy doing what you do. I know that as a writer sometimes people will ask “what are you writing about?”. I hate that question and also love it. There are so many different kinds of way to answer that one question that people will ask with total innocence. Its hard to answer that question without using a lot of writing terms and sometimes people will look at you like your nuts. When you walk to other writers they will sit their interested as you tell them all the technical details of your writing. As long as you’ll sit through their technical story about their book in progress. I can say that at the writer’s conferences I’ve been to there is lots of fangirling going on. Sometimes its about writing in general. Sometimes its about the published authors at the event and their books. Sometimes its fangirling with the published authors about their own books and characters. Or its with the published authors there about the other published authors who they sometimes love just as much as you do.
Third, You can improve your own writing abilities. There are so many good writing workshops that happen at writing conferences. I went to several this last week that inspired me to do some new things in my writing. I went to a workshop on creating a Story Bible which I really want to do now. I even found the perfect unused binder in the back of my closet. I went to a workshop about Point of View (POV) that introduced a whole new series of way to look at POV. I learned how to distinguish between a Character and a Narrator. I went to a workshop about writing methods. I went to an advanced writer workshop about writing real emotion and wrote my most emotional piece ever during the do it yourself section of the workshop. I was inspired to be a writer and be proud during the keynote speech. You can learn all sorts of things about writing that you might not have known before. I always learn all sorts of new and cool things about writing at writing conferences.
And finally, You can feel as if you aren’t the only weird person in the world. One of my favorite parts about going to writing conferences is meeting other writers. Personally, I’m the type of writer who hides in their room/office and writes their books by themselves. Sometimes the fact that no one really understands what you’re talking about when it comes to writing can be a little discouraging. Going to writing conferences can help to improve your excitement for reading. Like I mentioned last week, your writing should be done by you and your determination to be a writer is determined by you. Going to conferences like this can build your self-confidence, your motivation and your determination as a writer. This last year I was the Teen Committee and I helped to plan sections of the conference. But the best part was that I got to meet several other young writers who loved writing just as much as me.
All in all I loved the writing conference that I’ve been to. As a young writer of 14 I went to one of these writing conferences and I was terrified. I didn’t have many writing friends and parents weren’t allowed at the conferences. I was worried that everyone at the conference would think I was crazy just like the regular people who I talked to at school. But there were so many people who liked talking about the stuff that I liked talking about and yet we were all different in our own ways. I think that every young writer should go to a writing conference at least once. More times if you have the opportunity. Here's the link to the website for the writing conference that I've been to.
Alright. So that’s all I have to say about writing conferences. I hope you guys found that informative and motivated you other writers to find a writing conference to go to. They’re fun and really interesting. Next week I’m going to talk about my first piece of writing (but not the very very first one because I am never sharing that piece of crap with anybody until I can figure out a way to rewrite it into an actual story) but the first piece of writing that I finished from 5th grade.
Get Up, Get Writing, and Get Published! See you next week!