The following article first appeared in Windy City’s
fall/winter issue of Blowing Kisses.
Permission granted to forward to sister RWA chapters with proper credit.
Fredericka Meiners, co-editor, Blowing Kisses, Windy City RWA
RWA National Overview
By Jean Newlin
How do I sum up a week of conference, especially for Windy City members who’ve never had the opportunity to attend, especially in light of the mass destruction of Hurricane Katrina, I wonder what to say? Do I focus on the inspiring luncheon speeches? The insights I got from attending the “how to sell to” workshops offered by the publishing houses? The free books autographed at the publishing house book signings? The joy of seeing Kelly Z. Riley dressed up in her Golden Heart finery with her husband and family in attendance? What about those down and out nitty gritty “anonymous” agent and editor critiques which left some authors in tears? Or the fact that conference is as much about standing in lines as it is about sitting in warm, sometimes overcrowded meeting rooms listening to volunteers—people who are the pinnacles in the industry—tell you their secrets—even when those secrets are that there ARE no secrets. Unfortunately, not every RWA chapter gets to have their very own private moments with Susan Elizabeth Phillips, who gave the keynote speech on Saturday as well as two other inspiring workshops. No other chapter gets to have the wisdom of the many Windy City members who presented workshops at Nationals. Not every chapter gets told over and over again by brilliant published writers that every writer has his/her own process and what works for you, might not work for another.
The past few days, I’ve tried to put the entire conference experience in proper context as I’ve watched New Orleans sink beneath overflowing waters, and Biloxi, Mississippi, flattened into non-existence. Here I sit in my dry, safe house with clean drinking water, food, electricity, gasoline in my vehicles and the medications I need to survive, feeling guilty for my good fortune. Even my conference attendance this year was due to good fortune—I had my conference fee paid by an anonymous donor (from a raffle held at the Booksellers and Librarian’s Dinner this spring). I am a very lucky woman in many ways. Lucky and guilty.
How can I complain that I am one of only two people who have been members of the Windy City chapter since its inception—and actively writing—who still aren’t published? As those years mount up, I admit I have trouble justifying to family and non-writing friends that I really “need” to be at Nationals. They all look at me as if to say: Why would ANYBODY with that kind of track record, still want to be a writer?
Why DO I still write? Because writing is my life. I cannot NOT write (poor grammar, but the truth all the same). I write in my head at stop lights, as I drift off to sleep at night, as I proofread text I’ve just transcribed for work, in the checkout line at the grocery store, as I fold clean laundry. Writing is as much a part of my being as is my beating heart.
I go to Nationals because I get to hear people like Jennifer Cruise inspire the PRO members at the PRO Retreat. I get to listen to the Debbie Macombers and Susan Elizabeth Phillips of the writing world inspire me to keep on writing, to follow my dreams. For the five days of each national conference I attend, I give myself permission to leave the daily routine of work, home, family, church and all the other myriad commitments in my life, and focus on writing. I get to attend workshops all day long taught by people who want to write. I get to sit in large meeting rooms with a hundred other people who don’t think I am mentally ill just because I routinely have people talking to me in my head.
The most amazing thing about National Conference is that I come away with the same insights every year. It isn’t the inspiring luncheon speeches—although they are always inspiring—it is the knowledge that I belong to an organization willing to share its secrets with me. There are no pyramid schemes, no huge amounts of money I have to fork over to get to the “next level,” no secret handshake I need to learn, no decoder ring I have to purchase to get published. For the conference fee, I get motivational, instructional, inspiring speakers and workshop leaders. Every year I’ve attended National conference, I’ve felt a part of a greater community. I see the National Board laboring for the common good of all writers. RWA is actively working to see that we get fair contracts and are paid well deserved wages for our work, and the members of the National Board donate an enormous amount of time they could be spending writing themselves to work in our behalf. National Conference always leaves me in awe of the hundreds of people who donate their time so I can be renewed and feel inspired to go back to the keyboard when I get home.
From THIS National Conference, “Shining Bright in Reno,” I was reminded:
You don’t have to be published to call yourself a writer. You write, therefore you are a writer. Whether New York ever wakes up and purchases my manuscripts (and there are several!) or not, I am a writer.
I am not insane to want to do this. Thankfully, RWA is a haven. I belong to an organization of over nine thousand like-minded souls who want to tell stories so well written that they change people’s lives for the better.
And, the most important of all, Windy City is a jewel to be cherished. Over the past decade, Windy City has turned into an organization of people dedicated to the craft of writing who nurture the writer in every person. Instead of sitting around arguing about policies and procedures, or running for chapter office to accomplish personal agendas, we have been blessed with a continuous group of elected volunteers and unelected Committee Chairs who have donated their time, talents and energies to making the “writing life” a good life for each individual writer in the group. We have been given time to “fill our creative wells.” I think of Windy City as an oasis in the publishing world, and RWA National as our sophisticated, bigger sister. At National we get to hear diverse voices. It is inspiring to sit in an auditorium, or luncheon with over 2000 other writers who are there for the sheer joy of writing.
So, as I sit back and put conference in “context” of the current horrific events in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, I see needs that will still be there long after fresh water, housing and food are once again secured for the thousands now displaced and grieving. They will need happy endings, and who can give them better happy endings than nine thousand dedicated writers who want to make their world a better place, if even for the space of a few stolen hours?
Jean Newlin had her first work published at age 10. (I got a poem published in the Junior High Newspaper because my sister was editor—I'm claiming it ANYWAY!) She has been a member of RWA since 1989 and currently is writing her tenth book.