RWA 2018 Annual Conference: Thoughts from a Newbie

For the past four weeks our family life has been on fast forward – so busy I barely had a chance to stop and catch a breath. Between one of my children going into hospital (she’s fine now) to my hubby leaving for a work conference as our daughter was still in the hospital, to my hurting my back to the point where I couldn’t walk properly, let-alone carry kids around.

On top of that there was a long distance car trip to help a family member and finally, me leaving for my own conference – Romance Writers of Australia’s annual conference. All of this in four weeks!!

We are home now, no one is sick and my back is on the mend. I can move around easily enough now, I just need to be careful how long I sit or stand without moving around.

So I wanted to share my take on my first ever conference. That’s right, I’ve never been to a conference before. Going to RWA’s annual conference was a big deal for me. I knew almost no one, and I was making a step by going – I was declaring that I want to be a full-time writer.

I learned so much from people working now in the industry and met so many new people met. The next task is to apply it to my WIP (Work in Progress).

My take-away was – in no particular order:

• Go where your market is, don’t try to fit your writing mold into something that isn’t yours. Love what you write.
• Know your market. Don’t pitch to an agent who isn’t interested in what you are writing.
• No one can tell you what the message of your story should be, all they can tell you is how to better tell your message.
• Say hi to people you’ve never met, chances are they’re as worried as you are!
• Push (conflict) and pull (attraction) of romantic tension keeps your story going and together they form a rhythm that ebbs and flows with one always winning out over the other (this changes throughout the novel) until the HEA at the end.
• Wear/have comfortable shoes
• Do not spend $40 on continental breakfast and only eat corn flakes and yogurt.
• Do talk until 2am with your roommate and then try to get up at a reasonable hour the next day.
• Do explore the city you are in.
• Get lost looking for Pitt Street mall – 3 times!
• Bring a book but don’t actually read it. The same goes for the laptop.
• Learn all about what publishers and editors actually do for you!
• Be brave and enter the slush pile section, even if yours doesn’t get read out you still learn so much from the panel comments. Like how important good dialogue is for example.
• Dance the night away!
• Take lots of pictures.
• Finally, take notes, cram it all in and keep writing!!
• Keep dreaming and working towards your dream.

Enjoy!

Making more friends

Dress up night! Tuxedos and Tiaras with SE Welsh (L), Cassie Laelyn (C) and me (R)