Why I am Going to a Writers’ Conference

My Application After Retirement

I’m pretty old, although I don’t feel it, and I’ve been quietly stealing moments to write for several decades. My children are grown.  My working career is finished. I’ve paid college tuitions, sat on not for profit boards, facilitated civil rights activities and marched against wars. I’ve edited business papers and written health books.  I’ve taught classes, given presentations. And all the while descriptions and plot lines calmed me and kept me focused.  I treasured most my silent hours of writing secret chapters.  

A few years ago, I self published a memoir.  It won several awards. It encouraged me.  Now it is time for my fiction, my characters and my passion.

I want to make sure my characters have a life.  I want to double check that I’ve made their stories strong and their voices clear. I want feedback about plot, style, and description. I want to learn first hand what tools others take into those hours of solitude when the lives we have created come spilling out on paper.

Writing has been the great love of my life.  I want these next many years to polish it, publish and leave it behind.

And perhaps it will inspire.

They agreed.  I will attend a ten-day writers’ conference in August. More to come.