I promised I'd give tips on attending a writers' conference when I got back to my blog. In finding my starting point, it occurred to me there might be those wondering if they should write at all.
So how do you know you are called to write? I can only say that if you have to ask, you may not be. Everyone I've ever met who feels called to write must write, in the same way other people must breathe. If that's you, don't fight it. You won't win, and you'll just wind up frustrated you wasted time. Trust me. I know.
I found my calling to write in sixth grade when I wrote a short story for class and my teacher had me read it aloud to the class. I still remember the positive comments I received and my teacher, Mr. Ryken's, gentle urging that I should consider writing as a vocation. It made sense to me. I already devoured books, starting much too early reading the adult books in my parent's bookcase. But, really, my calling to write started long before I understood it as such. As a child of seven, I could be found sitting on the lawn outside my house as the sun sank low on the horizon, a little ring of the neighborhood kids around me. If paper did not exist, I'd have become a different kind of storyteller.
I'll tell you something. Most writers long for publication but few attain it. There's a certain glory to being published. Some who want publication are not called to write at all but rather just desire status. It's important to examine your motives. It's hard enough to fulfill your calling in this life without trying to do something you were never meant to do. Most published writers I've met tend to mumble about being published, if they mention it at all. That's because publication is not their primary goal. It's more a by-product of the process. If you love the end result more than the process, you'll never make it. Enough said.
By the fact that you're still reading, I'm going to assume you are called to write. The most important thing I can tell you is you don't need anyone's permission to fulfill your calling. Write because you must and don't fret about publication or non-publication. In our culture we tend to equate publication with quality. T'aint necessarily so. Have you read books that made you wonder if the writer was related to someone in the book industry and pulled strings, they were that bad? Focus on writing well rather than on publication. Many editors nowadays barracade themselves against invasive writers who fill their inbox with ill-written pieces. In the book world (which I'm more informed about at the moment), 95% of submissions received at publishing houses are rejected. More and more publishing houses refuse to accept unsolicited manuscripts at all, because they can't afford to hire the staff needed to sift through a barrage of dross, looking for the occasional gold nugget. They go, instead, through agents or, and here's an interesting fact, through writers they meet at writers conferences.
But before you go tackling editors at conferences, teach yourself to write. I can't stress that enough. Next time I'll tackle that subject, taking the long way round to selling at writers conferences.
