Thursday, April 15, 2010

Something to Offer, Something to Share

By Nichole Giles

In one week and a day I’ll be hanging with all my most beloved author friends at the annual LDStorymakers conference. This is my favorite conference, and probably always will be because of all those wonderful people. But this year, things will be different from conferences past.

From what I hear, registration has now topped 400. This is both a good thing and bad. Good for the obvious reasons. Lots of authors, loads of people to meet, big name, big resources, great classes, etc. But I’m sad in some ways too. Gone are the intimate classes of ten or fifteen. Gone are many of the opportunities for forging personal connections with other people like us—the crowd is just too big. Gone are the chances of coming back next year and actually remembering the names of even half of last year’s attendees.

There are pros and cons to both situations. As much as I love big conferences, I crave the personal connections forged in smaller settings. I love learning from the pros, but I also love socializing with them.

Believe it or not, I think some of the pros like socializing with us up-and-coming authors as well. Conferences are a great time to get to know people in the business—wherever they are on the ladder to publication. You never know who will have a contract in hand in a month. Or six. Or even a year. Let’s face it, we’re all in this together.

**cue High School Musical song**

Gag. Can’t believe I just said that.

Besides connections, we all have something to offer. Something to teach others around us. We may not know what it is, or how it’ll happen, but whenever like minds get together to soak information into their brains like so many sponges in water, someone is bound to take something you say and do something valuable with it. Even the wannabe bestsellers that haven’t made it yet.

What better place is there to share?

4 comments:

Stephanie Black said...

Can't wait to see you at the conference, Nichole! Last year was my first time, and I loved it.

Carolyn V. said...

Woo hoo! I can't believe it's so soon! Can't wait to see you! =)

Anonymous said...

I can't wait for it either and I was both surpised/elated/dismayed to hear about that 400 number for the same reasons you listed. Of course, I'm so glad because Storymakers is a fantastic conference and I'm glad to see it beginning to get the recognition it deserves.

See you there, Nichole!

Nichole Giles said...

See you all there, ladies! We're going to have a blast.