Return to the Public Part of My Writing Life

Welcome to the first Wednesday of the month. You know what that means! It's time to let our insecurities hang out. Yep, it's the Insecure Writer's Support Group blog hop. If you're a writer at any stage of career, I highly recommend this blog hop as a way to connect with other writers for support, sympathy, ideas, and networking.

If you're a reader, it's a great way to peek behind the curtain of a writing life.

Our Twitter handle is @TheIWSG and hashtag is #IWSG.

The awesome co-hosts for the May 5 posting of the IWSG are Erika Beebe, PJ Colando, Tonja Drecker, Sadira Stone, and Cathrina Constantine! Be sure to check out what they have to say, and visit other writers in the blog hop!________________________________________

I'm heading to a convention the first weekend in June. That used to be something I did six to eight times a year, but 2020 and 2021 has seen event after event cancelled or altered to become a digital event. Undoubtedly, it was the right thing to do. Stuffing hundreds of geeky folk into meeting rooms in hotels for music, merriment, performance, and discussion during the pandemic would have been foolhardy and irresponsible. 
But I'm headed to a scaled-back ConCarolinas and I'm *so* excited to be easing back into the public part of a writing life. Participation in conventions has been one of the poles holding up this rickety circus tent I call a writing career. 
At conventions, I have readings, participated in panel discussions, hand-sold books, networked with publishers and other writers, and interacted with readers. All this sharing, helped build my name as an author, sold some books, built relationships, and kept me motivated when things were hard. 
Not having conventions has left a hole in my writing life. 

During the past year, I sought out some video and online activities, and some of them were great! A panel held over zoom takes away some of the limits on geography and let me work with people three time zones over from me, or even in other countries all together. People I might never have gotten to work with otherwise. (You can check out a lot of that work on ConTinual's YouTube channel or on my own). 
But there's a serendipity factor in live events that is hard to recreate virtually. I never just wandered through the halls and ended up in a great conversation because I was attracted by the laughter at a virtual event. Zoom meetings don't give you the chance to peek into other rooms and see what's going on. Damn, but I've missed that. 
Now that I'm immunized, I feel a lot safer about venturing into communal grounds again and I'm so happy that I'll be starting with ConCarolinas, a con that has always treated me kindly and made me feel welcome. 
How about you? Are you easing back into the world yet? What kinds of public events have you been missing lo these many months?