If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like being at a writing conference, strap in, ’cause I’m gonna spill some tea! This September, I attended two conferences. The first was with mostly newbie writers and the second with very experienced writers, but they had one thing in common: WRITERS. And smashing hundreds of us together has consequences….

So what’s it like being with hundreds of fellow writers? It starts out pretty uncomfortable. While not all writers are introverts, most identify that way. And because writing is a solitary activity, we are used to lots of alone time. That’s two strikes against any gathering. To mitigate this situation, conference planners often include “mix and mingle” events.

 
Oh, honey.

 
Many of us simply choose not to attend. But conference planners are smart enough to know this, so they set out writer-bait like free ice cream, cocktails, or candy bars. (The peanut M&Ms go fast because writers in a flow-state know to keep SUGAR + PROTEIN snacks on hand.)

 
So we’ve been successfully lured out of our hotel rooms with the promise of chocolate or alcohol. (Or gourmet cheeses, at one of my events!) Now you have a room full of food-or-drink-clutching introverts desperately trying to avoid eye contact and weighing how rude it would be to race back to their rooms with their stashes of Peanut M&Ms and Dove Ice Cream Bars.

 
But then someone comes up and asks, “So what do you write?” And suddenly you are telling a stranger about your character’s arc from zero-to-hero, and while they smile and nod, you’re dredging up your very rusty conversational skills and recognizing it would be polite to ask what they write as well, and suddenly the cocktail hour you were dreading since registration six months ago is less awful than you imagined it would be. (Keep in mind that an overactive imagination is pretty much a requirement for authorhood.)

 
And the next morning, when you race to grab a back-row seat at your workshop of choice, you maybe find the person who was telling you last night about their amazing-sounding cozy mystery set in 14th century Iceland (Iceland! Who knew?), and you realize you’ve made a friend.

 
Here’s where I confess that it took about eight years of conferences for me to make the leap from runs-to-room-clutching-cookies to approaches-strangers-and-asks-what-they-write. But that’s what I do now because, guess what? I recognize that almost every single person in the line for gourmet cheese is feeling nervous and awkward and definitely experiencing massive imposter syndrome. (But: CHEESE!)

 
Now it’s possible that the authors making six- and seven-figures don’t have imposter syndrome, but we can probably assume that “free food” isn’t as much of a driver for them as it is for those of us standing in line. Whatever the case, I’ve decided it feels much better to calm someone else’s nervous energy and self-doubt than it does to do a grab-n-go and head back to my room. And the miracle of it is that when I’m focused on setting someone else at ease, I forget to be awkward and nervous myself.

 
Plus, who knows? Maybe I’ll discover a whole new genre of Icelandic-set novels to love!