If you’ve been keeping up with my social media accounts, you’ll know that I was at a writers convention, because I’ve been posting about it nonstop for the last week! While I can’t even begin to write down everything I learned there, I would still love to share some of the things that stood out to me. For more details on my experience there, make sure to sign up for my newsletter before next week!

The most important lesson I think, is that even as an introvert, I still desperately need the presence of other writers in my life. At the conference, I was giving out friendship bracelets, so I talked with at least one hundred people. My social battery was mostly dead by the time I left on Monday, but I found that my writer battery was completely charged and ready to go! Being around other authors who willingly ask you about your work and eagerly await your answer… that’s quite a feeling. (I also have some incredible non-writer friends who do the same thing, so I do believe it’s important to have both.) Moral of the story there, even anti-social hermits like myself need community!

The next most important takeaway was that you should never be afraid to put yourself out there. By the final day, I still had around forty friendship bracelets left, so at lunch I went around to all the tables and offered each person a friendship bracelet and business card. Getting your name out there and doing something memorable is important! I’ve seen many photos from the weekend including the friendship bracelets I gave out, and I hope that people will think of me when they see them. Going up to strangers is not one of my fortes, but I definitely got some practice in over the weekend!

The most common advice that I heard throughout the sessions, the keynotes, and discussions authors and agents was simple. Write what you want to write. There will be trends and expectations, but oftentimes those will pass before your work even gets published, so it’s more important to write something you can be passionate about. Work you have put everything into is more likely to succeed than work you made to satisfy the market. And even if it flops, you’ve still written something that you can be proud of.

I got so much advice and made so many connections over the weekend, that it would be impossible to include them all, but those were the main things that stood out to me. My newsletter next week will include some of the notes that I took with more detail, so be sure to get on the list!