Sunday, August 18, 2013

Sunday Story

I'm writing this post ahead of time because today is the final day of the RWA Conference in Fremantle, WA. No doubt I'll be brain dead, over people, in need of sleep and quiet and space.

I love the conference...and I hate it... in almost equal parts.

I love being inspired. I love meeting friends who I only see once a year. I love meeting people I've only emailed. I love learning. I love the chance to immerse myself in writing for a whole 3 days.

I hate the noise. I hate the crowds. I hate being rushed. I hate having timetables.

I like my solitude, my cave. Going out to the conference is a little too much, but worth the effort.

I used to do a lot of work conferences. They were the same experience for me. I always saw them as "condensing the knowledge of a few text books into a few days". They were a huge learning experience for me. I roamed around, often alone, and soaked up knowledge.

My first RWA conference was like that. Now I know too many people to be alone. That's given a whole new complexity to the conference for me. It means I haven't the space and time to process. I have to soak, store and process when I get home. It also means I'm overloaded for days, which can be a major problem for me.

I thought I was alone in my feelings about conferences but I'm not. The Wonkomance girls have written posts about it, which was so much like me. I've read other people's blogs and social media comments saying a similar thing.

It's nice to know introverts can go out and pretend for a while... but damn it's nice to come home!!

No comments:

Post a Comment