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Last month I attended my fourth Bouchercon, this time in New Orleans.  It’s a monster of a mystery conference … five full days, with hundreds and hundreds of editors, agents, reviewers, readers, bloggers, and writers of novels, short stories, plays, TV shows, and more.

The first time I attended, in 2019, I had two books out. In retrospect, I probably should have started attending conferences earlier than I did. Why didn’t I? Partly because no one suggested it (I was probably supposed to know about them, but I didn’t); and partly because even with two books out, I was still unsure that I belonged at a national gathering of Real Writers. However, had I gone, I would have discovered an important truth: there are infinite ways to participate in the mystery writing community. There is no one “right” path, and no single measure of success. More important, at conferences, you meet people who are a bit farther along the road and willing to offer advice, share their stories, and lend a hand.

As a side note, one of the smaller conferences might have been less overwhelming for a first-timer — e.g., Left Coast Crime, Thrillerfest, New England Crimebake, and Malice Domestic, to name a few.  

I truly believe it is impossible to foresee what good things will happen, if you talk to people, ask questions, and listen well. At Bouchercon 2019, I attended a panel on secondary characters, with Juliet Grames, along with several other writers. That night, at the Harper Collins party, I told her I appreciated what she shared about spending months in Italy researching the characters for The Seven or Eight Deaths of Stella Fortuna. Not until months later did I learn she was an editor at Soho Crime. We stayed in touch; and five years later, she acquired my book. It’s just one anecdote, but still.

When I teach my workshop on building a community of practice as a writer, I spend a good chunk of the 90 minutes talking about how to attend conferences. It’s more than just going to panels and checking out the bookstore.

So … what are some specific tips for getting the most out of conferences?

First off, leave your shy hat at home. Meet as many new people as you can. Yes, we writers tend to be introverted, but at a conference, everyone in the room is up for connecting. That’s usually why they’re there.  

Second, prepare strategically for connecting. Usually conferences will list the participants on the website in advance. If there is an agent or editor you want to meet, find out if they’ll be on a particular panel or will be taking meetings with attendees. If there’s an author you admire, plan to find them in the book room after their panel; that’s when they sign books.

Third, immerse yourself without drowning. That first conference, I attended as many panels as I could, and when I met people, I asked for their bookmark or card. I volunteered to be a panel timer (a very easy job) and checked attendees in at registration. I attended the dinners and joined the group at the bar afterward. I also took breaks in my room, just to chill. 

Fourth, follow up. The first few days after I returned home, I decompressed. But after that,  I went online and looked people up. I found their books at the library or bought them. I followed their blogs and read their reviews. If there were people I genuinely connected with, I wrote them an email to say I’d like to stay in touch. 

As you build your community of practice, think of every interaction as a thread of a web you are building, in both your web and theirs. Having some of that web in place before you have a book published can be very valuable. And it’s always good to stretch ourselves a wee bit.  

Some years ago, my friend Donna (kudos coming, D) and I were sharing stories about parenting, and she told me how there was a day she was rushing her two boys to get out the door, and one of them began having a full-on meltdown, as children do. She halted herself in her tracks and said, “Honey, take all the time you need.” The meltdown drew down several notches, and they got out the door, shoes, backpacks, and all. (Yes, I totally poached her approach for my own kids.)

That little story stuck with me because I felt something tip inside my own chest at the moment Donna said those words. They stirred up an ache. Because they were words I needed to hear myself.

Here’s a question — how many of us felt rushed as children? Hurry up and get your shoes on, hurry up and get out the door for school (or practice, or the dentist appointment, or whatever), hurry up and grow up. I’m not blaming parents — good grief, parenting is a full-on, busy endeavor, involving multitasking, conflicting needs, and bad traffic at exactly the wrong time. But I think it’s important to recognize when myths and messages imbibed in childhood are no longer relevant or helpful. 

This old pattern of “hurry up!” with the concurrent feeling of Dire Urgency (those caps are intentional) does not work well when it comes to writing. It makes me want to have a meltdown and throw my shoes against the wall. Paradoxically, the more I try to rush — the more attuned to some external clock and not the innermost feelings and thoughts of my characters — the less I get done and the blander and deader my prose. I might as well go to the kitchen and start dinner.

All this said, I am in the middle of editing my sixth book, and when I received my editor’s notes, I felt a moment of that Hurry Up Dire Urgency. (To be clear, it was not on her part; it was all in my head.) I took a breath. I reminded myself: these are edits on a book, not a life-saving medical treatment. And in fact, I have time — plenty of time. Weeks. Just because I have a deadline doesn’t mean it’s an unreasonable one. And in fact … I think my deadline is sometime in August, so … I’m good.

Deadlines are a matter of life — because other people are depending on us to finish our part of the project, so they can get to theirs. But I guess my musing for today is this: the mentality of “honey, take all the time you need” can help us push back at the personal myth that rushing is better and will get us wherever we’re going faster, or that some external schedule necessarily strips us of our ability to create. At any rate, wherever you are in your process, I wish you happy writing!