Morgan Shaw

I love writing conferences. There’s nothing better than being surrounded by hundreds of writers who get it, talking shop with the panelists, and realizing, for what feels like the twentieth time, you need to re-write your opening pages (not that that’s ever happened to me).

I have a (loose) tradition of attending one every year to keep up on industry news and sharpen my pen, and this year I wanted to jot down some tips for attending one yourself. Hopefully this little list might help you if you are on the fence about ever attending a writing conference, how you should prepare for one, and how to handle what you learned once you’ve returned to regular life.

Tip One: Know what you want out of the experience

If you do nothing else to prepare for your writing conference, I highly suggest at least putting some thought into deciding what you want out of your experience, because conferences are what you make of them!

If you know from the start you are only there for craft advice, then your priority can always be attending the panels and workshops you picked out, even if you met some new friends and they are attending something different than you. But if you are there to network, maybe it’s less important to attend the session and more important to keep building those relationships. Stay focused on why you paid money for the conference to ensure you get what you want out of it.

Knowing what you want out of the experience will help you when you are preparing for the conference beforehand as well. For example, want to make connections and get your name out there? Be sure to create and bring along business cards to pass out and prepare outfits for yourself that accurately present you as your brand.

Tip Two: Be prepared to network

Yes, yes, I know. Networking. It’s like a curse word to a bunch of introverted writing types (please believe me when I say I am one of you!) But, even if you are attending the conference to explicitly focus on the craft, I urge you to take advantage of the opportunity and put yourself out there.

Honestly? Networking is more than half of what you are paying for with your ticket. The fact is, if you want lectures on prose or resources on how to publish or tips on how to write memorable characters, you can find all that online and in books. What you can’t replicate from the safety of your own couch, is in-person, face-to-face time with writers and other publishing professionals. Even in today’s age of Zoom and Google Meets, there’s a magic that can happen when two people sit at the same table at a conference that can’t be replicated online.

You are connecting with these people maybe because you want to be friendly and have fun at the conference, and speaking with them is easier than speaking with perfect strangers because you share something in common: writing and publishing. But don’t ignore that, beyond the experience of the day, networking can have a big influence on your career down the line.

Just like a lot of other businesses, publishing can be a who-you-know type of world, and you never know–maybe the man you sat at a table with in a workshop can lead you to the inspiration that helps you polish up your draft or rewrite a character. Maybe a woman you are friendly with at lunch can, far down the road, publish your book. Publishing is a small world. Try to make friends!

A word to those of us who find social encounters draining, intimidating, or otherwise scary: it’s okay if you don’t find your new best friend at a writing conference. And it’s okay even if you don’t do more than speak politely when spoken to, especially if you are attending your first writing conference ever! The first few conferences I went to, I kept my head down and focused on the sessions. If that’s you, trust me, I get it. Do what you gotta do. But if you have the energy to be brave, remember: Taking the opportunity to introduce yourself to a stranger can be difficult, but it is a key part of the conference experience that everyone is also there for! You’re among (potential) friends. 🙂

Tip Three: Only take notes you plan to use

This is a funny one. I take copious notes the first few days of a conference, then usually taper off to taking pictures of the presenter slides by the end. The fact is, if you’re anything like me, you want to remember what you’re learning, but by the end of the conference you feel as if you’ve been drinking from a fire hose for a few days. There’s not much more gray matter to soak up the new information!

I’ve learned writing down what the presenters or slides say word-for-word is usually a waste of time. When I think back to what I’ve learned during conferences, I remember to-do lists and simple takeaways. I’m not often wondering what x presenter said halfway through their presentation on writing a compelling character arc.

I recommend focusing on taking notes you are confident you’ll use and refer to in the future. Obviously that can vary from presentation to presentation–perhaps in a presentation about grammar you are frantically copying (or taking pictures of) every rule the presenter is speaking about, and then later you only write general thoughts about your story when you are watching a panel about plot structure. But if you are intentional with your notes, you’ll have curated training materials to refer back to in the future, rather than a meaningless pile of images filling up your camera roll that rot in your phone’s storage for years.

Tip Four: Make a to-do list

I’m not usually a person who swears by to-do lists, but when I’m overwhelmed they are lifesavers. And I’ve yet to meet a writer who attends a three or four day writing conference that doesn’t come away from that conference feeling incredibly overwhelmed!

After all the presentations and panels, there is a danger of a person walking away with a million ideas buzzing in their head. Those ideas might paralyze them to the point that they don’t have the energy to return to their draft or reach out to people who they connected with–but a to-do list can ameliorate that paralysis.

At the end of every conference day, I like to open my to-dos document and write my key takeaways and tasks. In times past, my to-do list has been filled with things I need to research, edits I need to make, books I need to read, people I need to contact, and career decisions I have to consider.

This is my great distillation exercise. I ask myself: What really mattered about the things I learned? How can I use what I learned in my writing? In my career? Where can I improve, and what things do I feel like I already have a good mastery on? (That is a tough question for a forever student like myself to answer.)

At the end of the conference, I have a one-to-three-page document of everything I want to remember and execute on from the conference. This list is key to making me feel like the conference wasn’t just a fun weekend with like-minded people–it was a career opportunity.

Tip Five: Try not to play the comparing game

The common saying is “comparison is the thief of joy” and boy is it soooo easy to compare in this industry. Whether you are a new writer just finishing your first chapter ever, or you are seasoned vet who has thirty plus published books on Amazon, there is always someone who has done more than you, is more successful than you, and who looks like they have it all together.

But, and I want to stress this, you are only in a race against yourself. Writers are artists, and artists don’t have one career path we are all supposed to follow. There isn’t a right way or a wrong way to approach our craft. Some people wrote their first book at sixty and were a worldwide phenomenon, some people have written twenty books by the time they are thirty and haven’t published yet, and some never want their work to see the light of day (not to mention the many, many definitions of success that vary from writer to writer).

We are all different, want different things, and write for different reasons. It is easy to go to a writing conference and measure yourself against your peers. We are in a sometimes lonely profession, so when we get together we immediately want to know: am I doing this right? Am I successful?

Try to remember, there is only one of you, your unique perspective on the world, and your art. You aren’t your peer, and thus comparing each of you would be like comparing a pencil and a pen, both accomplishing similar things in completely different ways with different strengths and weaknesses.

You shouldn’t be trying to emulate someone else’s path to success (outside of common sense improvements you can make in whatever areas). You should be interested in carving your own!

In Sum

I hope these tips help you as you consider attending your first (few!) writing conferences. There really is nothing else like a weekend of surrounding yourself with people who have devoted their lives to the art of writing!