BRMCWC Writing Conference Good for the Soul
The fifth day after returning from the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writers Conference, my mind is still soaked from the gushing fire hydrant of information the faculty kept warning us about. The director of this popular conference, Edie Melson, sent out a post-conference blog post about how best to organize and prioritize everything that had crammed our minds. It is helping. Even before the conference, Edie shot out preparatory posts once or twice a week to help newbies like me acclimate.
Four days at Ridgecrest Conference Center in Asheville, NC, minus wine, television, or naysayers has feverishly motivated not only my writing life, but my life in general. Any doubt about my chosen life’s track has fled.
Our days began with group sessions after breakfast. It was like having church – really cool, writer church – every morning, complete with worship. I plan to go through all my notes and pluck several pearls from those amazing presentations and encase them in artistically-crafted memes with WordSwag. Thanks to learning about Hootsuite, I’ll then use this invaluable social media tool to fling my memes all over the place.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to go. Too expensive, too time-consuming, and a huge hassle. But when we got an unexpected check in the mail that more than covered it, I rolled my eyes at God and gave in. It took half a day to get there and the other half to orient myself to crazy days that started at 6 a.m. and didn’t let up until 9 p.m. After my body got over the shock of rising between 5:30 and 6 a.m., like muscle memory, it remembered college campus-mode. I couldn’t believe I made it to every class without collapsing. After a couple of days I settled into a routine. What a rush to sit at the feet of award-winning authors, speakers, agents, and editors.
The adrenalin is fading now, but the afterglow remains. My writer tool kit brims with shiny, new tools to help with writing my books and creative ways to connect and network. God used the conference to adjust my writerly road map, and as a bonus, added supportive, like-minded, new friends that have already plugged into my FB page and Twitter feed.
Here are a few hydrant gushes meant for writers, but pretty darn invaluable life lessons as well:
We don’t have rejections, we have re-directions.
Establish a budget.
Assemble a “street team.”
Physical activity fires creativity.
If you need to shorten the story, take out the subplots.
Have a willingness to be repaired.
Creativity begins with a Creator.
New accountability partners! The Three Musketeers.
As I crack my knuckles over my keyboard and flex my fingers, my mind races with a heightened sense of responsibility to the communication gift I’ve been given. A good writing conference is an excellent way to help me remember I’m not alone in the struggle to put words on the page.
The BRMCWC fire hydrant info-blasts gushed into my brain during each class as I sat scribbling in my notebook, biting the end of my pen thoughtfully, but I wasn’t prepared for the love-blasts. The love-blasts flooded my heart with encouragement and purpose.
And that is why I’ll be back.
