I don’t love Las Vegas like I used to. I am not the same girl who used to come here yearly, and Vegas isn’t the same either; it too has changed in the last couple of years. As soon as I landed for the Author Nation conference and arrived on The Strip, I regretted coming. I had won a ticket to the conference, and my awesome friend J.L. Birchwood had offered to let me stay with her, which made attending possible to begin with. It felt like the universe was pushing me to go…but after I arrived, a conference I used to love attending when it was 20 Books to 50K suddenly felt like a bad idea. And honestly, that feeling lasted for a few days.
Imposter syndrome struck me hard. What was I even doing here?!?!
Early in the week-long conference, my accountability group met up in the food court of the Horseshoe casino, and as jazzed as I was to see my friends IRL, I had yet to feel the motivational bug I usually caught when attending this conference. Was this me, or was it because it was Author Nation now—a for-profit conference and not 20 Books to 50K—a non-profit that kind of felt like adult summer camp? I think a lot of it was me and the pressure I had put on myself to network and learn everything I missed when I couldn’t attend last year because of, well, if we’ve been corresponding for a while, you know why.
So, Tuesday night rolls around, and I go up to my room. J.L is there, and I flop down on the bed and start to be sad out loud. I tell her about the pressure I’ve put on myself and that I really thought the universe was going to hook me up here. I cry. She talks me through it.
The next morning, I’m still in a funk, lying in bed texting with my writer friend Melanie Bishop at around 6 a.m. I tell her about my internal struggle bus. She says she thinks I should send an essay to Jane Friedman. Being published by her had a big effect on Mel’s life. I text Mel, “Ok, I will,” and think I’ll add it to my to-do list. Later in the day, around 3 p.m., I have a break and go up to the room to send Jane the essay I had in mind—one I’d written weeks ago on rejection. I read it over and realize it’s a bit of a mess and about 200 words short. I sit on the hotel bed, write, edit, and send it off, then go downstairs. It’s now 4:30. I’ve missed the start of the next lecture set, so I find my friend Rosa Linda Roman sitting with Justin Herzog, and I sit down with them.
At 4:45, I look down at my phone.
“Holy shit,” I say.
“What?” Rosa Linda asks, concerned.
“Jane Friedman is going to run my essay on rejection—and it’s going to run on November 18th.”
We cheer and hug.
That night, at the board game meetup, I get to tell the other members of our accountability group this story, and we cheer and hug again. The thing I brought forth for myself—from a 6 a.m. conversation to a 4:45 p.m. acceptance—happened in a way that doesn’t happen often in this business. A golden moment. I had felt myself at a breaking point. I felt myself slipping, and the universe course-corrected me and was like, If I give you this and you ignore this sign to keep going forward, girl, I don’t know what to do with you.
I had meant to write this week specifically about what I learned at the Author Nation conference, but really, this was the most significant thing that happened to me there. This was the part where I was the lowest and the highest, where I saw a shift in my own creative life. Where I saw forward movement, and where I got to celebrate in real time with my community—one of the best parts of it. Sitting there with my friend when I opened that email, getting hugs that night from my accountability group who usually only get to root for and support each other’s wins over Zoom. This was the beauty of a conference and of surrounding yourself with a support system that can lead you back to the path and cheer for you when you reach a personal goal. I hope you get to experience all of this.
I’ll write more about the conference and what I learned about publishing and new resources in upcoming letters—the good and the ugly. I hope you’ll stick around for them.
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