After years of putting it on my list of annual goals… I finally made it to Realm Makers.
I’ll admit, it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. It was very scheduled, which I should have expected, and this made it a lot more class-heavy and a lot less people-focused. But some of that is in what you do with it; when I go back, I’ll try to hold the schedule more loosely and prioritize conversation more highly.
I did get to meet so many people that I’ve known online for ages but had never seen face-to-face! There’s photographic evidence of most of those meetings.
I also got to meet Shannon Dittemore, Lindsay Franklin, and Nadine Brandes! (Sadly, I was quite tired that night and you can’t tell how excited I was to meet Nadine.)
Shannon was lovely to meet and learn from; I attended her class on developing characters and also got to sit with her for lunch on Thursday, so I got to learn a lot from her and you will be seeing posts inspired by things she said!
There were also people I missed and didn’t say hi to, Candace Kade and Jenna Terese chief among them, whom I’ll have to seek out next time.
The sessions were, overall, helpful and encouraging! There were some things I questioned or would have done differently, but I really appreciated the emphasis on going out as God’s co-creators, creating with Him and taking dominion under Him as He commanded. (I did notice the term “dominion” was never used, the “dominion mandate” was never referenced, but I wonder if that’s more common in certain circles and less commonly used overall than I realized?)
I came away with a somewhat mixed view of the Christian writing community. On the whole, it was great to see such a focus on bringing Christian creatives together, on combating the splintering of artistic Christian communities that I’ve seen happening, and on creating with God and for His glory. There were also some weak spots, some compromises, some places where I wondered (not for the first time) if there are any Christian publishers I would actually be fully comfortable partnering with. But I also heard from authors and agents who were really solid, authors I’m happy to call friends, authors I would collaborate with any day of the week and I’m really excited to see succeed. The Christian writing community just is a mix, I think, just as the Church is, and I hope that we see weak areas strengthened and strengths used to their full God-given potential for His glory.
I owe great thanks to Sarah Grimm for her mentorship. Brief though our session was, it helped a lot to remind me I don’t have to listen to every “should” and to get me thinking about other false ways I was thinking about my projects. (I’ll be talking about that more in an email on Friday, so sign up to the newsletter if you’re interested in hearing some of the thoughts I’m reworking and what it means for my primary writing projects!)
I also owe thanks to Janeen Ippolito for taking time to talk to me about worldbuilding, look over the one-page summary of my worldbuilding book, and give advice on how to strengthen the idea. (Also to Allen Arnold just for saying he liked my title. That was reassuring as it was an experimental title chosen because I knew my behind-the-scenes title was too vague!)
Also, multiple people surprised me with how much I had impacted them. One friend came up to a table where I was sitting with a bunch of authors I’d been super excited to meet because they’re awesome and I was somehow the one she seemed most excited to meet?? I was certainly not expecting that much excitement over little ol’ me, but she’s a delightful friend and it was so lovely to finally meet her and hang out with her throughout the conference.
Sarah Rodecker and I got a picture together with her book Escape from Mathebos because I was her editor and helped make it happen, which is still crazy to think about. I can’t believe I’ve helped facilitate multiple publications now and books I’ve edited are on bookshelves and available for people to read and enjoy. (Obviously not all the credit is mine! The authors I’ve worked with have had amazing stories and I’ve been so privileged just to get to help them refine those stories so that they’re all the more powerful for readers!)
A third friend shared with me how much my Preptober Prompts event helped her find her writing style and write some of her favorite work, which made me squeal because what?? That event was that instrumental to people??
A fourth friend immediately introduced me to someone at her table and talked up my worldbuilding stuff just because I was standing there.
Each instance was so amazing and humbling, and I’m so grateful to God for letting me see the impact He’s worked through me. Some of it still doesn’t feel like it’s sunk in as real.
I bought books! I mean, how could you not, at Realm Makers. Winter White and Wicked came in before Realm Makers–I was about halfway through during the conference–and I came home to my copy of The Nightmare Virus, but everything else on the stack was purchased at Realm Makers. I limited myself almost entirely to books I’d already been planning to buy at some point anyway, with a couple exceptions.
I feel like I would be remiss not to mention my costume for the Awards Banquet. It was not one that anyone I ran into recognized, sadly but not unexpectedly. Any guesses?
Answer: Claudia Donovan from Warehouse 13. (If you haven’t watched the show yet, go do that. It’s amazing.)
Will I go to Realm Makers next year? I don’t know yet. It’s a couple hours closer, which is a point in its favor, and I do want to return to Realm Makers and I’d love to meet up with these author friends again sooner rather than later; but it extends over both Saturday and Sunday next year and I’m not sure if I’ll be ready to go again for a consecutive year, as it can be pretty overwhelming and attending once did leave me with mixed feelings about it as a whole. So we’ll see what the Lord orchestrates!
In the meantime, I’m settling back down to my writing and doing my best to keep in touch with the authors I met and preserve everything I learned so I don’t lose it–and so that some of it can benefit you, as well. If you’re interested in hearing more of those things I learned as I share them, I recommend subscribing to the newsletter! There are some things I’ll be sending there exclusively, and everything I post on the blog is shared there as well, so it’s the best place to go in order to not miss anything.
Comment below if you also attended and share some of your experience! If you haven’t attended before, would you in the future? Are there any other writing conferences you’ve attended and enjoyed? I’d love to hear from you!
It’s so cool that you got to go finally, and have so many good experiences! Also, I really like your Captain America shirt, haha.
I think the only way I’d go to Realm Makers is if it was very close and I had something ready to pitch or otherwise seek counsel on. It would still be a stretch for me because unless you were going, I wouldn’t really know anyone there well at all.
Thanks, lol.
Yeah, I think the opportunity to pitch and meet with experienced authors for mentorship is one of the conference’s big strengths. Getting to know people I wasn’t already familiar with online was a bit difficult in my experience; part of that was probably just my own personality and I think part of it was how big the conference has gotten. I did find that it helped to know people who knew other people, lol, because I was able to meet a few new people through introductions by people I already knew (and, to be fair, I did also meet some people through proximity in sessions). But the sheer volume of strangers can definitely be overwhelming, and it’s sometimes hard to find time to even make writerly small talk. Again, though, some of that is probably how you approach it! It’s probably easier to focus on personal connections if you’re less focused on the class schedule, and somewhat easier to keep from being overwhelmed by all the people if you’re busy focusing on the classes and specific appointments, so there are definitely ways to shape the experience to what you’re looking for in a given year, and I’m sure that gets easier the more you go.
Thanks for the insight! Those are good points. I expect my personality would hold me back a lot in making new connections, at least without the help of mutual friends like you mentioned. I suspect I’d also be tempted to rigorously follow the schedule, as I think you said you did at first, unless I was “with” someone who didn’t care to do that.
Now that I’m thinking about it, a good way for me to approach something like this would be to do it with a buddy or a small group of friends who plan to do it together. Then let things happen from there, attend the workshops we agreed were worthwhile, and do our own thing or meet people the rest of the time.
Aww, I’m glad you had a fun time! It sounds great!