My First Virtual Writing Conference...Made Me Miss The Real Thing Even More

 I watched as the attendees logged off. One-by-one, the rectangles that represented a viewer disappeared until only John and I remained.

That's when it hit me.

That's when I really missed attending conventions in person.

Fyrecon 4 ends today. The past three years, the little gathering has always been a place geared toward both the novice and experienced writer, artist, editor, creator. It's a great little convention usually held in the summer. But, that didn't happen, so they scrambled, went virtual, and put it on this weekend. I've been fortunate enough to be involved in the previous three Fyrecon events. 

This year, my class dealt with using the power of social media to help you as a writer. As I explained to start the class, I'm no expert. I wanted to set up an environment where we could discuss the topic and try to find ways to improve. Hopefully, we did that. I know I found some new perspectives to try.

After the meeting a good friend, John Olsen (current President of the League of Utah Writers--a little "name drop" for you...) and I stayed and chatted. John and I have had the opportunity to be published by the same publisher not once, but twice. One thing that you don't see if you go to conventions and meet the authors is that many of those authors are friends and we love to sit and shoot the bull in between sales and sales pitches.

It's usually the small things that you miss when events are taken away. Yes, we remember being on panels and sometimes meeting our writing heroes at these conventions. But, what I really wanted to do as my class shut down, was find a corner of the Davis Campus building and sit with John, Kelly, Jay, Julie, Dave, Craig, David, James, Holli, Jason, and so many others.

Thanks DawnRay and Jenna for ALL the work you put in for us, and to John for sticking around.

Until next time, when we can be together...

For real.