Maria's Art ​and Words

Last week, I was in Madison, Wisconsin, a scenic place with a great university and a writing...program.

I'm not sure how to describe UWisc's Writing Institute, except to say that it offers affordable critiques and classes for local and distance learners, and that it is wonderful.

The premise of my workshop was simple: spend time reading the first fifty pages of seven other writers' novels, and critique them in class amidst a host of exercises, revisions, and one-on-one time with the instructor. 

I'm pleased to say that I met a talented group of authors working in multiple genres. All of them had connections to Wisconsin, except me, of course. I'm un-pleased to announce that my health did not cooperate and that I spent a lot of last week turtled up under the covers of my Airbnb rental, considering whether eating Chef Boyardee--again!--would be harmful to my health.

I learned a lot and I'm ready to revise the beginning of the novel. I think that setting the foundations and using the insights revealed last week will also help the middle and ending of the book. I hope that my fellow attendees also found our workshop helpful.

I don't care if it's a writer's conference, a philosophy conference, or a comicon-type event. Conference-going is overwhelming and scary. Here are some tips, organized by time:

Before:

• Plan, but be flexible. It's frustrating to forget about an event or meetup you wanted to attend, but it's also frustrating to feel as though your time is 100% booked and you need to stick with your original roadmap.
• Be clear on what you want out of the conference. Are you going primarily to spectate and take it all in? Try for a holistic experience. Are you there to network? Make sure you hit all the social events.
• Book accommodations  and event spaces well in advance. If you're booking a restaurant for a lot of people, or looking to try that one restaurant (TM), know that thousands of people are doing the same. Hotels can get pricey in the weeks--sometimes, months--leading up to a conference
• Research good food and activities in the area. Again, you don't necessarily want to spend all of your time in conference mode, as that can be exhausting. Take advantage of the conference location and timing.
• Prepare your materials ahead of time. Remember to take business cards, resumes, writing samples, anything you think you might need. There's nothing worse than arriving at a conference only to find you've forgotten a key component of your networking strategy at home.

During:

• Stay hydrated and nourished. Just because the conference schedule doesn't leave time to eat doesn't mean you shouldn't! A lot of the busier conferences simply have too many activities ongoing to have discrete mealtimes. It's important that you are physically capable of focusing on this conference that you've paid money to attend. 
• Know your limits. Sometimes, your brain just can't take any more. This is why I often bookmark sessions as either "essential" or "interesting," because I know that I can only handle so much, and I don't want to burn out before that essential panel in the final timeslot. If you find your mind starting to wander, it's best to take a break.
• Record interesting or notable things. It could be a person you meet, an inspiring quote you hear, a new book recommendation or even something completely unrelated to the conference. There's a lot going on, and remembering it all afterwards is impossible, so make sure you capture it while it's fresh.

After:

• Follow up quickly, if you didn't follow up during. Sending a quick note to the contacts you meet, connecting with them right away, or, if it's more official, doing what they ask during the conference in a timely manner is important. First, you can't trust that you'll remember everything or that they will, and second, it's a lot less like a cold call if it's in the month after the conference than if it's a year afterwards. I've let a lot of opportunities run dry this way, to my later chagrin. (This also applies to random chance meetings.) 
• Organize your random notes. If you're like me, you might jot down notes in a journal or type small reminders on your phone. Try deciphering what you meant by, "Circle strategy for making outlines" six months after the fact. I dare you. So, it's still your brain, so you might have recorded the exact words your brain needs to remake the connection. Or, as has happened to me more often than I'd like, your brain scrambles to make new connections because your notes look like the scribblings of a madman.
• Plan for next year. No, really! A lot of conferences have early bird discounts and other perks--also, see above with hotel and event planning--that make it worthwhile to register as soon as possible. Also, wouldn't it be fantastic to benchmark your progress by returning the following year?

I got inspired to write this post because of AWP's annual conference. I was supposed to attend last year, but my thesis was due the same weekend, so that didn't work. I'm excited to share more about AWP in the upcoming days. If you're interested in attending, they have will-call and one-day passes for people in the LA area.

I'm not fantastic at the whole 'leave your life behind' residency concept. I've gotten better at managing my time since my first residency here in Chicago, or, even more laughably, my first residency at Goddard College, where 'manage your time' meant playing Hearthstone in bed and looking for edible food. (First semester of MFA residency sucks, guys. You're looking for a way around while trying to figure out why they accepted you while juggling a mountain of workshops and tasks...)

But I'll admit that I do other work while I'm at residency, try to find time to do art when I'm supposed to be writing, and even keep up some scheduled commitments like student council meetings, Aisthesis scheduled events, and paid work. That's not because I'm a malicious person. It's because I see my time at home annoyingly expended the most by mundane chores and errands, and when I'm out of town, those vanishing is a huge win.

Someday, when I'm even better at residencies, I'll do it. I'll shut off my cell phone--okay, except to call home so my mother doesn't send a search and rescue party--and tell everyone I'm unavailable and stop answering emails. But right now, the work I do is important to me, and I can't shut off things like my classes workload without incurring a huge time penalty later on. The goal of a residency--for me, right now--is to carve out a different niche in time and space for my work. I don't cheapen that by overcommitting to 'other' activities. Nor do I diminish it and risk burnout later by turning off the rest of the world.

​So, without further lead up, here's a list of what I plan to do this week. I wrote it before I left, so even though I'm in medias res as I type this, I haven't modified it at all. I'll post when I get home and let you know whether I was successful:

• Write one flash fiction story and one poem each day
• Review submission markets and make a list of submission targets
• Revise a novel I've been sitting on since November 2013. Not in full, because that'd take a full week of sitting in a chair and still be nearly impossible, but making significant progress on pacing, outlining, and figuring out what should be changed
• Go through a writer's activity book I bought and complete activities/read useful craft links
• Revise short works for publication
• Modify and switch over website. Again, I don't expect this to be fully completed, but I've decided to merge my blog with my static website, so you'll start seeing some changes in that direction
• Go through this daily drawing challenge class
• Make a list of application deadlines for future opportunities
• Meet with a rescue cat that I might adopt...

​Yes, Internet! Hold me accountable. I dare you!