PPWC Changed My Life!

I registered for the Pikes Peak Writer’s Conference yesterday. This is the one I go to every year and while I was trying to justify the expense to my husband (it’s a little pricey to be honest), I realized that it’s kind of changed my life. Not in that sappy infomercial way, but it’s changed the way I see myself as a professional writer. Writing is a lonely, solitary activity. Sure, you can get together with other authors to write but it mostly looks like this:

It’s something you do by yourself in your own head. Especially if you’re in the stage I’m in now, plugging away perfecting your craft, waiting for someone to notice. I don’t have an agent or an editor, I don’t have fans. The only contact I have with the outside world in a professional capacity is through critique partners and beta readers. The conference gives me a community, a chance to connect with peers and gain perspective on the industry I’m trying to shove myself into. It was at my first conference that I decided to call myself a writer because that was when I finally felt like one.

I mentioned last week how important goals are in the writing process. I can set myself goals and in fact I do, but without the outside influence of an editor or even a whip-wielding friend, I don’t have any impetus to make goals let alone keep to them. But the last couple years I’ve found my professional life revolving around the conference. I’m usually pitching my work to an agent or an editor, so I spend the first half of the year editing, polishing, and writing my pitch. The second half, I’m putting everything I learned at the conference into practice and sending out queries for the final draft. It’s completely reshaped the way I work as a writer.

So this year I’m working frantically to get A Shroud For My Bride ready to pitch in April. It needs at least another draft if not two before then and I need to write the pitch for it. A cadet cop with OCD has to reconnect with her vigilante father in order to catch a murderous enchanter? Maybe. I guess I’ll work on it.