First Conference: The Aftermath
I’m back. As expected, I survived despite my anxiety. The trip to New York was great, and I gladly accept the resulting exhaustion. Since I went primarily for a conference, and conferences are for learning, I’ll share a few things I learned.
- If I’m going to take red-eye flights, I need to learn how to sleep sitting up.
- I still love NYC. Cabs accepting credit cards makes it even better.
- Meg Rosoff and Mo Willems are entertaining/fascinating enough to keep me wide awake no matter how little sleep I’ve had. And Shaun Tan is brilliant. (I must check out the work of all three.)
- We need to shrink geography or come up with more time-effective methods of travel so there aren’t thousands of miles between me and the likes of Mindy McGinnis, MarcyKate Connolly, Charlee Vale, and Matt Sinclair.
- Speaking of … Mindy after a few glasses of wine isn’t very different from regular-Mindy. And MarcyKate needs a medic as part of her personal staff.
- Editors are people, too. People who dress better than I do, but people nonetheless.
- While I’ve gotten pretty good at forcing myself out of my introvert tendencies, I can only push them away for so long. (Mindy was very proud of me for managing the shindig Saturday night as well as I did. But I was definitely ready to head back to the room when we did.)
- Mindy’s anecdotes on her blog are awesome as-is. But when she tells stories in real life, she reenacts. This is not to be missed.
- Cupcake love forever!
The bottom line is that I need to head back to NYC before too long. (And yes, I know my sister will insist on coming along that time.)
I want to go to a big writer’s conference, but I haven’t managed to find money or time. I’m glad you had fun though. I’ve been to other conferences and they are amazing!
Good to hear your trip went well. One of these days I might make it to a conference.