A Week Removed from SF Writer Con 2014..

Last weekend (Thurs-Sun), I was at the San Francisco Writer Conference. It the first Writer Con I've attended, after some encouragement from fellow writer-friend, Wendy Spinale. Note: she's an up-and-coming writer that you should be on the look-out for! Check out her blog, if you have a moment. Beyond her writing skills, she's also incredibly helpful to folks like me, working to hone our craft.

The conference made peoples' heads explode. Not that the concepts were so mind-boggling to be incomprehensible. It was simply an inundation of info about how to improve writing, dialogue, character, improve platform, the differences between self-publishing and traditional, pitching, and so much more.

I have nothing to compare SF Writer Con with. That said, from the many folks I met (and networking is probably one of the biggest things to consider... hey, this is just like my ol' business school, whodathunk?), I understand that the SF con is one of the largest. Also, it has a very collaborative feel amongst the writers, published authors, other instructors, agents, publishers and industry experts.

The Speed-Agent-Dating on Valentine's Day was interesting too. More on that one later.

The biggest take-away is so simple, it will seem like plain common sense. Even when it comes to the whole debate about traditional publishing and self-publishing, it trumps all like the one ring. I'm going to start with that seemingly easy concept and post some more later, when I get a chance.

The one thing you have to remember above anything else in writing is:

Focus on the content and make it the best writing possible!



 

Now you can laugh. Or glare. But seriously, one of the things writers miss most is too much focus on the pitching, querying, identifying the one great idea, etc. It's tough these days to break in to the market-- I think one of the published authors mentioned J.R.R. Tolkien might have had difficulty getting through today's agents, despite his obvious excellence and now-notoriety.

 

Everyone knows you need good timing in the market, and a little bit of luck, to really garner the success everyone desires in this field. But writers primarily can only control one thing: their own work. Time to get to it!

P.S. If you were like me, and trying to save a few and BART in, I got one thing to say to you: I hate walking up Mason Street to Mark Hopkins Hotel.