Last Thursday morning I flew to Auckland to attend this year’s RWNZ Conference. This was my first writer’s conference, and I hadn’t visited Auckland in over ten years, so I was a little nervous, but also excited.

I met up with my friend—and roommate for conference—Gillian St. Kevern at Auckland airport, and after a late breakfast, we headed out on our detour to the Typo outlet store. Considering it’s a discount very cool stationery shop, I thought we were both very well controlled.

We arrived at the hotel in time to get settled, and pick up some milk—for our important breakfast and evening cups of tea—and dinner before manning the registration desk. Gillian had volunteered to help out that evening, and the following morning, and I tagged along. It was a great way to meet people, and I recognised so many names from shelving their books in the library! Everyone was very friendly, and my initial nervousness disappeared very quickly as I matched people with their name tags and handed over their loot bags.

The guest speakers were amazing, and I spent an incredible few days listening to Grace Burrowes, Damon Suede, Bella Andre, Geoff Symon, and Nalini Singh amongst others. All the speakers were very uplifting and inspiring, and I filled half a notebook with notes from their talks.

I went to a couple of Grace’s talks. The first on Thursday evening was about a writer’s prose toolkit and very practical, the second on Sunday morning with tips as to how to survive being a writer. She also spoke about the importance of romance as it’s a genre of hope—something we all need. An added bonus was that one of the books in my loot bag was hers, Scots themed, and signed.

Damon gave several talks about characterisation and dialogue, and how to structure a story with scenes and sequels. One thing that stuck with me was show vs tell, something that is reiterated a lot to beginning writers, but often forgets the importance of showing why your character has that particular emotion. He also gave a very interesting talk about intimacy and how to keep your sizzle fresh at any heat level.

Bella Andre told a very interesting story about her journey with traditional publishers that led her to self-publishing. She spoke about the importance of series, and what worked for her. I’m definitely not writing fast enough! But in saying that, a repeating comment through all the speakers was that it is all about being yourself and having your own path, rather than beating yourself up about what others are doing and achieving.

Nalini Singh gave a very interesting talk about writing in series on Sunday afternoon, which covered the different kinds of series. I love series, so was very pleased I was able to attend that one. It had originally been one of three to choose from but there were so many people wanting to go to it that the organisers changed it to a plenary session.

Another I’d been looking forward to was Geoff Symon’s Forensics for Fiction. That one was a very interesting talk about getting the details right in crime fiction. I came home and ordered copies of his books.

Although the cold reads sessions started at 7.30am they were well worth getting out of bed early for. Writers put forward the first two pages of their project and editors comments on them. I wasn’t sure what to expect with those, but now debating whether I’m brave enough—or have a WIP in the right place—to put one forward at next year’s conference. As part of the conference there were also opportunities to pitch to the visiting agents and editors. Some books published this year were ones that had been pitched at last year’s conference.

There was also a LGBTQI panel hosted by NZRRW’s own Jamie Sands, Ada Maria Soto, and Gillian St. Kevern called Beyond Pronouns. It was lovely to finally meet some of the members of our group in person.

Another highlight for me was meeting Jude Knight in person. Jude is the current contest co-ordinator for RWNZ, a role I will be taking over later this year.

Despite lack of sleep due to too hot air conditioning, and mornings far earlier than what I’m used to as I work evening shifts, I felt as though I was on a buzzy high most of the weekend. I’d vowed to take lots of photos, and then at the end of the conference, realised I’d been so caught up in it, the only photo I’d taken was the view through our hotel window!

Although this was my first RWNZ conference, it won’t be my last as I’m now planning to attend every year. I found it very worthwhile, not just for meeting people, but I learned a lot from the talks, and come home knowing I need to keep writing. I’ve already started saving for 2019 which will be in Christchurch.