Priceless!

by Anna Sugden

Cost of Nationals Conference … $325
Return plane ticket to Dallas … $300
Room and board … $700

Seeing your writing buddies and getting to hang out with them … priceless!

Earlier this year, I was in the doldrums. A big rejection. Stuck in my work. Writing going nowhere. My chances of finalling in the GH were, I thought, slim to none given my heroine wakes up in bed with the hero because she had too much to drink the night before (not exactly home and hearth category!). I said to my husband that I was debating not going to Dallas. What was the point? I could order the CD’s and save a heap of money.
He smiled patiently at me and said “But the main reason you go is to meet up with all your writing pals.”

He’s right. It is without a doubt the best part.

I’m glad I changed my mind and went. Writing can be such a solitary occupation. How authors managed it in the days before internet, I don’t know. I’d be lost and have given up long, long ago without my online pals.

The same friends who will critique a synopsis at the drop of a hat, will find a safety pin to hold you together when the top button of your skirt pops. They have band-aids for your blisters and ideas for your stalled plot. They cheer with you for the highs and hug you during the lows. They’ll stick voodoo pins in those who reject you and stick by you when you’re nervous before an appointment or workshop you’re giving. They understand the trials and tribulations of life and they get what being a writer involves. (Really, who else gets the voices, the way characters wrest control from you, the ideas that pop into your head at the strangest and often most inopportune moments?)

I’m so glad I followed my husband’s advice and went to Dallas. Not just because I had a great time and helped my writing career inch forward another step. But because that week in Dallas was filled with special moments with my friends.

The one who picked me up at the airport and gave me a bag of emergency goodies (water, cookies and crisps etc) for the week. The one who quietly mentioned me to her agent - I didn’t know until her agent told me! The gang who gave up workshops to sit with me and brainstorm how to strengthen my hero in time for my editor pitch. And the one who handed me a beer after I’d spent a couple of hours being 'line nazi' for the check-out line at the Literacy Signing.

These are just a few of the special moments, and there are more I can’t mention publicly, but for which I’m eternally grateful. All these moments prove that your writing friends are simply priceless.

So, tell us about some of the sweet and caring things your friends did for you in Dallas. Or any other conference.