Conference Letdown

Yeah, it happens.

You race back home, laden with freebie books and loads of inspiration, then: WHAM. It’s time to get back to the business of writing. Um, the kind that leads to a book, not a blog.

For me, aside from the cost, the wear and tear on brain cells from alcohol-soaked nights, and the joint pain from stalking around in high heels for too many days…there’s another downside to the national conference.

Self-doubt.

Which I guess is always gonna be a part of writing. There’s always gonna be someone whose productivity puts yours to shame, who sells millions of books without having to beg relatives to buy them, who has the hot-shot agent when you still don’t even have one…

I mean, we can’t ALL be Nora.

Which I GET. I truly do. Hell, I’m not even Randy Jeanne yet. Not officially.

But still…

It’s hard to read so many clever blogs, so many brilliant books, without feeling humbled and discouraged. But then I remind myself of the most important lesson I’ve learned since joining RWA: it’s all about baby steps. (Hey--I didn’t have kids to teach me this so it took awhile.) I’m not the writer I was in Denver five years ago and I’m not the writer I’ll be five years from now in New York City.

Well, at least, one hopes.

The other lesson (and—sigh—I guess this applies to life as well) is to find the balance between struggling to be as good as the best while accepting our limitations. Take Susan Elizabeth Phillips, for example. I heard in a workshop that she toiled for years as a mid-list author until one day she stopped obsessing about her plotting weaknesses and concentrated instead on what she was good at: funny and sexy. Voila. Best seller list.

So I guess it boils down to just being the best we can be (yeah, I know—insert Army theme here—or is it the Marines?).

And that concludes today’s episode of Randy Wallows….