The Romance Writer’s Revenge is proud to welcome Santa O’Byrne (or Sandra if she’s going to insist) back to the ship.  Here’s her take on the whole conference experience…

What is conference afterglow, you ask?

Conference afterglow is the surge of bliss, an unequivocal euphoria and bone deep contentment you feel after you’ve come away from a particularly gratifying experience at a conference.

That’s what I’m feeling right now.

And I’m hoping it lasts for a very long time because I’d like to savor the experience for a bit longer and draw all the inspiration I can from it before it all fades into the ether.  Inevitably, that’s what happens whenever you return from a conference or some sort of retreat.  You feel charged and ready to conquer the world – except the world has other plans for you.

Not me.  Not this time.  This time I’m going to record the five tenants I gleaned from this conference and they are:

Faith.

Hope.

Will.

Determination.

Perseverance.

Time and again I heard those tenants at this conference.  Not all at one time.  Not in any one workshop. But as I talked with agents and authors, both published and unpublished, I found these to be truths.   Sure, some of them came out of the gate with hot winners on their hands but their journey to that end was filled with many of the trials and struggles aspiring writers such as ourselves have gone through.  Those marvelously polished books were once manuscripts that were met with edits and revision requests even after they were bought.  And this after many years of writing and the legendary horde of manuscripts under the bed. 

But all these writers had FAITH that they would one day publish.  It was this faith that fostered the HOPE that their manuscripts would be accepted by an agent.  This hope drove their WILL to succeed in the often overwhelming world of publishing.  Their will only served to fuel their DETERMINATION to complete that manuscript, bringing them one step closer to publication.  And it was their determination to succeed that fostered the PERSERVERANCE to overcome any obstacles blocking their way to being published.

So, I’m applying them to my own writer’s journey.  As seen from a writer’s perspective they make complete sense to me.  I’m even thinking of having them framed around my work space – in big, bold letters – underlined and maybe even in italics.

So , what do you do to keep the conference fire burning?  How long have you managed to keep that conference afterglow?