Don’t sit here unless you have a super absorbent towel.
It’s the Monday morning after the San Francisco Writers Conference, and I’m sitting in a motel a couple of blocks from Ocean Beach. Because while downtown San Francisco is Disneyland and Las Vegas wrapped up in New York with a side of Tokyo and Hong Kong and a teaspoon of Peru (don’t ask), the core of the city is too much stimulation for this simple girl to experience for more than a few days at a time. I need the decompression of a cold, windy beach, minimal traffic, and good coffee right next door.
The same goes for conferencing. I attended well-rested, open-minded, free from work life worries and personal life drama, in the best mental shape of my writing life ever, yet still after three and a half days, one must step away and allow the absorption to take place. I’m concentrating on my “other” love and web site today, and try not to think about what I’ve learned at the conference until at least tomorrow morning. A certain amount of distance is necessary to obtain perspective.
The conference is a good thing, a necessary thing for me. It’s an inoculation, a gentle reminder that in the year that’s transpired since the last conference, I’ve fallen into bad habits. Or lazy, bad habits. I learn about what’s new, I see old friendly faces and meet new, mostly old, friendly faces. I choose a couple of small, easy fixes for my writing, or my web site, or my marketing, and will work on those items. I revel in the enthusiasm of the young writers, and commiserate with fellow compatriots who have pledged to toil on for the long haul.
Writing anything, be it a novel, memoir, poem, or blog post, is work, hard work. It’s not a lottery ticket. Writing is an art you will not instantly be fabulous at. (I think I’ve said that elsewhere.) It doesn’t come easily (although now it’s coming much easier, but that’s the practice factor at play), especially with external forces constantly tugging at you, trying to derail your progress.
Information is a wonderful thing, as is camaraderie and validation. But it means nothing unless you put the information to work, you forge the friendly banter from the initial hello to a lasting friendship, and you take your talent to higher levels to live up to the praise.
I’m here, still walking in the wet. Still thinking of plot twists and character development. Still fighting the good fight.
Still writing.
