RWA Conference Overview

I was, not only a complete newbie at the RWA (RomanceWriter’s of America) Conference the week before last in San Antonio Texas, I am a complete newbie in the world of novel writing altogether.

Quickly – the conference blew me away. It exceeded my expectations completely. There were workshops on everything I could think of from How to Write Faster and Better (Cindi Myers) to topics I hadn’t thought of, like Homicide (M.A. Taylor). There were fun workshops like BDSM and How to Write Hot Sex @ShoshannaEvers. There were serious workshops… oh I didn’t go to those :) And in between it all there were speakers like Sylvia Day @SylDay, book giveaways, book signings, and schmoozing! Lots and lots of schmoozing!

More in Depth:

I don’t know how many overall workshops there were, I didn’t count but they went on from 8:30am until 5:30pm for three straight days. For each time slot there were 3 or 4 different workshops going on at the same time. There were also tracks you could choose from like the marketing track or the craft track and for the first time this year there was a self-publishing track. I was told to try and mix it up a bit by going to different workshops in different tracks, which is what I did. Since I could not make them all, I bought the audio because most of the workshops were recorded! Did I mention the handouts? The workshops had handouts too and we got a flash drive with the handouts plus they can be downloaded from the RWA website if you’re registered for the conference. --- a handy dandy app was available with all of the handouts and workshops plus the ability to set your own schedule.

Here were the available tracks:

• ·      Career Track
• ·      Chat Track
• ·      Craft Track
• ·      Industry Track
• ·      Marketing Track
• ·      Publisher Spotlights
• ·      Research Track
• ·      Self-Publishing Track
• ·      Special Topic Workshops
• ·      Training Track
• ·      Writer's Life Track

Another option is pitching. You are able to sign up to pitch an agent and a publisher/editor.  On the day of, you can pick up extra pitch slots as well. A lot of people were nervous about the pitching but this was one of my favorite parts of the entire conference. I love pitching! Disclaimer: I wrote and read my pitches, I did not have them memorized. It was exhilarating.

Now I have a 4 month deadline to finish and polish my novel and send out partials. The best part of the RWA conference is that it filled me up. I am re-committed, re-motivated and excited to put my plan into action. If nothing else, this is a reason to go… but there are so many reasons!

1.     EDUCATION – so much to learn!

2.     Free books and schwag

3.     Meeting your favorite authors and finding new favorites

4.     Pitching agents and editors

5.     Rekindling your motivation and passion for your craft

I cannot say enough about the awesomeness that is the RWAConference. Next year it’s in NYC and I will be there!!!