Continuing to Learn

Kicking off conference season

I’m writing this sitting at my desk at home with a packed suitcase waiting for me downstairs and a half-packed handbag waiting for my laptop next to me. I’m stalling and watching the clock because, as someone who cannot really relax on a travel day, I’m watching the block.

I’m on my way to Brighton today for a crime writer’s conference. This will be the first time I attend a conference for mystery writers, and as excited as I am, there are also the usual anxieties that come with walking into a room full of people not knowing a soul. However, I’m bolstered by the advice of my friend Laura who says, “You don’t need to be brave, you just need to be a little bit braver than someone else,” when it comes to making friends at conferences.¹

So why go spend a weekend doing something that makes me slightly anxious when I could be sitting on the sofa knitting and watching baseball with my husband? Well, more than anything else, I’m a strong believer that the best writers are the ones who are constantly learning and conferences are a great place to do that.

Honing your craft

I know that it is cliche, but I always start a book hoping that it will be better than my last. I want to believe that The Dressmakers of London will be stronger than The Last English Girl was compared to The Last Dance of the Debutante, and so on. I love writing, and one of the ways that I express that is in challenging myself with every new book.

Conferences are like a creative skills top-up for me. Even when I’m speaking, I try to attend at least a few of the panels and sessions to see if there’s something new that I can glean from the speakers. Sometimes, it isn’t even necessarily the content of a class that is valuable but rather the ideas that it sparks. I’ve plotted entire books or marketing campaigns based on a spark of an idea that I had during a panel session.

Keeping an eye on marketing

One of the areas that I’m always on the look out for new and useful information is marketing.

I know that talking about the business of being an author can sometimes puncture the romance of writing for some people, but when this is your livelihood that allows you to pay your mortgage and your bills, you take it very seriously. Marketing is such a large part of what I do, I’m constantly trying to improve my strategy and techniques.

I’ll be honest, I don’t think marketing comes naturally to me the way that it does to some people. However, just as you can work at becoming a better writer, I believe that you can work at becoming a better marketer. Even if a conference doesn’t directly address marketing in its panels, I always enjoy the chance to speak to authors about what they’re doing that works for them.

Meeting your people

When you write for a living and you do that work home alone, it can be easy to find yourself stuck in a bit of a cave. Your working world naturally shrinks because you have no colleagues, no commute, no reason to really leave the house unless you force yourself out. When people earlier along in their writing career ask me whether I think it’s worth attending conferences, I always tell them that meeting other authors is always a good reason to consider attending.

At my first romance writing conference, I met two women who would, years later, be at the very top of my list of wedding guests. Three of us became friends with three other authors, and we formed a little group where we can celebrate, complain, share, and support.²

I never go into a conference that I’ll again experience the magic alchemy³ that was meeting that group, but I always go hoping that I’ll meet some other authors who I might stay in touch with after the conference ends.

So now, I’m off to be a little bit brave, learn some things, and generally be a curious author.

1. This is a great reminder in all realms of networking.

2. Those three other women were also at the wedding!

3. Someone’s been listening to The Tortured Poet’s Department today…