I'm Attending My First In-Person Writer's Festival!

I’m pretty excited. I am about to attend my first, formal, in-person, writer’s festival! It’s coming up soon and I’m getting prepared to go...

I’m going ‘all in’ because I even booked to stay in a hotel so I could get the full experience and not have to drive home each night, (even though I may have to go back a forth for a couple of personal reasons). I can’t remember the last time I treated myself to a hotel stay. When you live in an amazing beautiful place in a wonderful little home, you stay comfortable and homebound, for the most part. As a writer, I can be quite happily entertained remaining home with my thoughts and ideas and devices to write. And so, I will be off to soak in all the amazing vibes from other writers, and listen and learn from the speakers and presenters. It will be quite exciting to be in room filled with like-minded creatives!

I’m putting together my package with the festival’s info and schedule, plus my short submission for critique, a few pages from my latest book that I’m in in the final stages of editing, Tropical Transformation. I also am also taking with me some of my marketing and promo information, like my bio, my promo book covers, business cards (to direct people to come to my website, liseparton.com), a merch sample printout and info for the several items available with my designs in a Print On Demand website (redbubble.com in my shop LIPSpeaking under the line ‘Writing Warrior’.) And I have put in some other poems and info about upcoming books and projects I am working on. I am also now tweaking a piece for my 12 minute talk. Can you believe it…I use lots of words for my writing and my piece is too short to last 12 minutes…who knew? So I have to get that done and practice, although no one said it was to be from memory, so at this point, that won’t happen, I’ll use my notes.

I know that I am there to soak in gratefully connecting with others, but this is a networking opportunity as well, and I hope I be brave and proactive and put myself out there. I do have much to offer the world with my creativity, but I know I am just better at producing than promoting.

I will let you know how it went, as I expect it to be a blast and full of fabulous memories. I also hope I can connect with some new like-minded creatives, because this writer’s festival takes place not far from my home.

So get those materials ready and packed, I say to myself, and get your clothes and what you need for the trip and get ready for a bright new, amazing, writing-related experience! Whahoo!

Cheers! Lise

(Photo courtesy of Barry on Unsplash.com)