This weekend’s Wild Wild Midwest SCBWI Conference was a whirlwind of keynotes on creativity and story, of breakout sessions on craft and character, of random hallway meetings and table-side tell-alls. It was glorious, as so many writers’ conferences are. I came home invigorated and inspired, my brain brimming with ideas. And I felt connected, reminded once again that the world is filled with kind, generous creative souls who are just as passionate about writing for children as I am; people who want to celebrate and grow and learn together.

Know the feeling?

Is there a way to hold on to some of that post-conference euphoria? How do you tap into that positive energy, all those great ideas, that sense of community, tomorrow, or two days from now or two months from now?

Here are some ideas I plan to try. Are there others that work for you?

Ways to Hold on to Your Post-Conference Enthusiasm at Home:

• Write
• Re-read your notes
• Try the writing exercises on a work-in-progress
• Follow the authors, editors, agents and illustrators you met at the conference on Twitter
• Signal boost a fellow writer’s tweet or blog
• Buy (or request that your library buy) one of the books you heard about at the conference
• Read your WIP aloud
• Volunteer to help at the next writers’ conference
• Send thank-you notes to the people running the conference
• Start a critique group (if you don’t already have one), or get together with your critique group and share what you learned at the conference
• Stay in touch with a friend you met at the conference
• Have deep, meaningful conversations about your favorite books and how they shaped you as a writer
• Ask other writers about the books that shaped them
• Revise your WIP
• Start something new
• Read a new author, and then find him/her on Twitter to let them know how much you liked the book
• Strike up a conversation with a bookseller or a librarian
• Play
• Join a writers’ listserve or online community
• Read author and illustrator blogs
• Write your own blog post
• Tweet some of the amazing things you learned at the conference
• RT other authors and illustrators
• Query an editor or agent you saw at the conference
• Have fun with the characters in your WIP
• Donate to We Need Diverse Books
• Write
• Write some more

© 2018 Rachel Martin. All Rights Reserved.