summer SCBWI conference in Los Angeles<\/a>. The price tag at any conference is always a major consideration, of course, and this usually forces me to really examine what I might be getting out of such an expenditure. At first glance, these things always look so awesome. The panels–I want to go to five at a time. The schmooze events–which famous writer will I make lifelong friends with? The keynote speeches–what writerly wisdom! What secrets of the trade!<\/p>\nThen I come back down to earth. Keynote speeches can be hit or miss. The panels, at third or fourth glance, don’t seem quite as earth-shattering. And my schmoozing abilities are of middling quality at best, unless I decide to mildly embarrass myself with the help of alcohol. <\/p>\n
The reality of the matter is, when it comes to writing conferences, I have to remember that I know some stuff already. I learned a lot of quality nuts-and-bolts craft points attending college for writing and art. I learned how to let others read and comment on my work, and to evaluate my own work more critically. And, of course, I learned how to network, do research, and toot my own horn on occasion. As part of a Web site marketing department, I was exposed to the importance of, well, marketing–icky as it may sometimes be. <\/p>\n
Remembering all of this helps me immensely when it comes to A) choosing a conference in the first place, and B) figuring out which and how many panels to attend. When you think about attending a conference you have to figure out whether you’re actually going to get something out of it for your money: by learning something totally new, by hearing the words of someone you really admire, or by experiencing a new and unexpected take on an old topic. These are definitely the deciding factors for me. That’s why I ended up skipping a few smaller local seminars this year. <\/p>\n
But in the end, I think I’ll be going to at least part of the SCBWI summer thang. I’m eager to hear a few of the speakers–Carolyn Mackler and Christopher Paul Curtis, for two–and it’ll be interesting to have the experience of a big writing conference, something I’ve never done before. I’ve been to E3, a big video game industry convention, but that was totally something else, plus it was work-related, plus there was some of that mildly embarrassing alcohol-related schmoozing I talked about. At SCBWI I hope to take advantage of the opportunity to meet and talk with more experienced professionals, and I plan to be choosy about what I attend. <\/p>\n
Plus I’ll save a few bucks by staying with my parents. (Now, if only I can channel the ensuing teenage flashbacks into writing fodder…)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve been thinking a bit about the merits of writing conferences lately. I have mixed feelings about them in general, and specifically as well…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,10],"class_list":["post-3205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-af","tag-views"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3331,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3205\/revisions\/3331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/writingya.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}