Freelance scribbler exploring worlds real and imagined

Insights from the In Your Write Mind Conference

I just wrapped up my first experience at the In Your Write Mind conference hosted by Seton Hill University’s popular fiction program—quite literally, in fact; I’m on the train back to Pittsburgh as I write this.

You might think, given how many writing conferences and such I go to in a typical year, that the experience would be predictable by this point, but the truth is that past experience has just taught me not to assume anything. Conferences and conventions vary wildly in just about every respect. I’ve been to some that last a single day and others that last 4-5, conventions with 10,000+ attendees and others with less than a hundred. Most have book fairs or exhibit halls, but not all; some are mostly panels, some mostly workshops, some mostly readings, some a mix of all three—and the value I’ve gotten from going to those activities has been just as wide-ranging.

I’ll start off by saying the In Your Write Mind conference definitely delivered when it came to value, in every sense. Registration was only $60 for a 3-day conference and included a book signing table—which I saw as potentially a double-edged sword. It made me feel like I had nothing to lose by going, especially considering how close Seton Hill is to Pittsburgh. On the other hand, though, I didn’t get my hopes up too high, unsure whether that old adage of “you get what you pay for” would prove to be true.

In this case, it didn’t—and in the best of ways. The IYWM conference hit high notes on just about every point, with entertaining and informative panels, a few fun activities to break things up (including a D&D track!), and tons of great conversation with fellow attendees, most of whom were Seton Hill alum but were happy to welcome an outsider into their midst. 

Which I suppose means that my first insight from the conference is: I definitely want to do it again in future years. Here’s a few more nuggets that will likely be more helpful for other people:

#1: Don’t let impostor syndrome be your inner saboteur.

I was torn whether to even sign up for this conference. I’d never heard of it before, and I couldn’t quite tell if the “alumni and friends” wording on the advertisements really meant it was open to anyone or if you would feel like a complete interloper if you showed up without some connection to the college. 

Then after I signed up—I almost talked myself out of going. By the time I packed up to leave, I was sure the book fair would be me with my little debut chapbook surrounded by best-selling authors with 20+ books each. Basically I convinced myself, really without any reason, that I absolutely did not belong here and that it was peak arrogance and folly to think that I would.

All of this couldn’t have been further from the truth. I wasn’t the only non-alum there, for one thing. And when it came to the book selling table, it was a nice mix—yes, there were some established authors who had big backlists and slightly jaw-dropping lists of accomplishments, but there were also other folks like me, just starting out with their first title or two.

RuPaul talks often about the inner saboteur on Drag Race and that’s something I’ve been very conscious of lately. My inner saboteur can be loud and demanding, and I’ve historically been quite bad about letting it influence my thoughts, actions, and how I feel about myself. This time, I told it to shut up and forced myself to take the risk anyway, and I’m so glad I did.

That’s my first lesson to other folks who have a vocal inner saboteur that constantly tells them they’re an impostor who doesn’t belong. It’s hard to ignore that voice, but the reward is worth it when you do.

Insight #2: There are more resources out there for indie authors than many realize.

One of the cool things about the In your Write Mind conference was how openly it embraced folks who publish in a variety of ways. While most of the panelists were traditionally published, a lot of them were also hybrid writers or exclusively self-published—and there was no sense of a hierarchy to how your books reach readers, just a collective of writers trying to share their words.

This inclusive view on different publishing avenues struck me as a huge departure from a lot of the conventions and whatnot I’ve been to in the past. To be fair, the overall impression of self-publishing has shifted since I started going to writing conferences—it’s not seen with the same stigma that it was in the past, even in snootier circles, so I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised to see it so embraced by an event focused on popular fiction.

One result of this was that I went to a couple of panels that focused on indie publishing and marketing, and learned about some great resources like:

Insight #3: Step-by-step construction can be a helpful way through tricky scenes for “panty-liners”.

I learned a few different fun things from a workshop on plotting led by  Briana Smith, first being the term “panty-liners” to refer to people who aren’t always planners but aren’t always pantsers, either. The term unsurprisingly comes from the romance community and I’m slightly tickled by it.

One of the approaches she talked about is called the BFF method, which stands for Brainstorm, Free-Write, Flesh-Out. Basically, you start by sketching out the overall structure of the scene, then you free write it like it’s a script—not worrying yet about writing nice sentences but just writing the conversations between characters, with stage direction style actions, expressions, or key details of the scene jotted in where it goes. Then, once you’ve done that, you can go back and add in the prosey bits around it.

This seems like it would be an awesome approach especially for writing action scenes, or any scene with complex staging or intricate plotting and movements. I also plan to try this the next time I’m stuck on the word level and just want to push forward through the scene and get something on the page. 

Insight #4: Archetypes can be handy when you’re writing a pitch.

In another talk I found super helpful, L.J. Longo shared some lessons from her time working with agents and in book marketing. One great strategy she suggested for writing both pitches and back cover/marketing copy is to start by identifying the archetypes and tropes that you either play with or subvert in your book.

In both of these cases, you want to be as concise as possible. Archetypes are an excellent shorthand for both publishing professionals and readers of a given genre. They can convey a lot of info about your story without taking up much space. That’s especially necessary when you’re trying to write something like an elevator pitch, and in longer copy it leaves you more words to build a voice or drop in details about the world or characters that will pull a reader in.

…that’s definitely not everything I learned at the IYWM conference. I took a ton of other notes over the last few days and I’m excited to look through them and integrate some of the lessons and techniques into my process. Hopefully some of this info is helpful for other folks, too!

 

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#Conferences #WritingAdvice #PublishingAdvice #SelfPublishing