Rob Kelley here, talking about writer’s conferences, particularly for as-yet-unpublished authors.

I’ve talked before about how writing is a solo sport for much of the journey, only becoming a team sport once you enter the publication process. But that’s not entirely true. There is another team sport: writing conferences.

It took me a while to figure this out. At first, it was hard to sit out in the audience and listen to these successful writers talking from the other side of the great publication divide (jealous much?). They’d solved the mythical equation of writing, revising, getting an agent, getting a publisher, and getting their book out in the world.

But that was exactly what became the real joy of conferences for me: talking to real writers–even super successful ones–whose journey was exactly like my own.

Let’s face it, many of us writers aren’t our most outgoing in the first place, so putting yourself out there, introducing yourself, talking about your own project, is pretty intimidating. But that was the core of my realization: it’s the same for almost everyone else. Sure, when you’re 10+ books into a series you have a little more confidence, but the basic daily work, the market challenges, and the desire to make great work and get it in the hands of readers is the same for all of us, published or no.

During a ThrillerFest in New York several years back, I got invited along with a group of Maine thriller and mystery writers for an impromptu lunch. The topic that day was book titles, and even the most successful New York Times best seller in the group expressed their frustration at their publisher’s stubborn insistence on an exceptionally boring book title.

The lunch was a blast, but it was also a healthy reminder of the fact that behind the desk, in front of the computer, we’re all doing the same thing. We have good days when it works and bad days when everything we write is crap, or, worse, when we stare into the abyss of the empty screen, the blinking cursor taunting us.

Not only have all those other writers faced what you face, which is heartening, but there’s something even better in getting to know other writers, those on their way and those already there. Writers adore other writers. They want to be your cheerleaders. They want–no, they crave–seeing other writers blossom.

I mean, let’s face it; there aren’t that many wins in the life of a writer. There are the negative word days when you delete more than you add. There are bookstore readings with almost no, or actually no, attendees.  (If you haven’t stumbled across this gem, please enjoy the reaction to debut author Chelsea Banning’s sparsely-attended bookstore reading.)

But if you are part of a community, like the glorious, generous Maine Crime Wave community, then you see other writers go from unpublished to published, and you cheer them on. You listen to writers whose work you adore talk about writer’s block and push through your own when it comes. You hear challenges with agents, publishers, sales, licensing, audio rights, and experiences with self, hybrid, and traditional publishing. And you discover that you are all doing the same darn thing: spinning out words that you hope transport another human to a place that, until that time, existed exclusively in your own head.

It’s not like conferences come with a user manual. I thought I should go and listen to successful authors and divine out what made them successful. But what I learned was that while I was not yet published, I had more in common with them than I realized. They too struggled with their books, with editing and revising, with a plot that wouldn’t go the direction it was supposed to. What they collectively helped me understand is that the work is the same for everyone, pretty much all the time. And that for that small stretch of time at a writer’s conference, like tonight and tomorrow at Maine Crime Wave, you know we are all in this together.

So chat up that person next to you between conference sessions. Learn what they like to read, or what they love to, or want to, write. Find your book-loving and book-writing brothers and sisters. They are there for you, and you can be there for them.