Guest post by Dana King

I've asked my friend Dana King to drop by and tackle this week's question: Your thoughts on your conference experience. Do you get post conference blues, or does it energize you? Dana's the author of the amazing Penns River and Nick Forte series, and he's a frequent attendee at major conferences. If you haven't read both of his series, do yourself a favor and get over to his website and check them out. Meantime, here's Dana.

Let me begin by thanking Dietrich Kalteis for inviting me to write this post. I’ve been a fan of this blog for quite a while, and it’s a privilege to contribute.

Since my first Bouchercon in 2008, I’ve attended at least twenty-five such events, including ten Bouchercons, a Left Coast Crime, a Sleuthfest, three Malice Domestics, ten Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity cross-genre conference and other random get-togethers. My takeaways have evolved over the years as I gained experience as a writer and made friends, but the core hasn’t changed.

Like most writers, I am an introvert. Writing is an occupation that appeals to introverts due to all the time spent alone wrestling with the voices in our heads. This means conferences — especially something as large as Bouchercon — can be daunting at first. Frankly, I still feel a little anxious when arriving at a conference. Spending days at a time with that many strangers is not on my bucket list.

What has changed over the years is how quickly that feeling disappears. It’s hard for me to approach people I don’t know, so when I knew no one, and was myself unknown, an event the size of Bouchercon was intimidating. Many thanks to Peter Rozovsky, John McFetridge, Declan Burke, Zoe Sharp, and especially Scott Phillips for helping me over that hurdle. (The Peter Rozovsky/Scott Phillips story is too long to fit here. Hit me up at a conference and I’ll tell you all about it.)

I used to hit as many panels as I could squeeze in and took copious notes in every session. I viewed cons as educational experiences from which I intended to improve my craft, as well as my understanding of the industry. I still have the original notebooks and their transcriptions on my hard drive.

Much has changed in sixteen years. Conferences are now primarily social events for me. I still take notes, but I go to panels as much to be entertained, or show support to friends, as to be educated. I also don’t make such a fetish about going to every panel I can get to. Sometimes it’s nice to rest for an hour, or catch up with someone I haven’t seen in a long time.

Back to the core question: Do I get post-conference blues, or am I energized?

The best answer is that I am both energized and exhausted. I can’t wait to get home and start writing again. After a long nap. Or three. That much time in a compressed space with hundreds of other people empties my tank. That doesn’t mean I didn’t have a good time — I’ve never not had a ball at a conference — but it takes a lot out of me. I’m sure many of us saw athletes, especially in track, collapse immediately after their gold medal-winning races in the Olympics. I’m sure they had a good time, too. That doesn’t mean they aren’t exhausted.

I’ll also get jazzed. Will be for weeks. Ready to jump right back into whatever is in progress, and searching for time to address projects that came to mind because of what I heard at the conference. Or was myself involved in such a discussion. Or just picked it up from the energy in the atmosphere. Excited as I’ll be to get back to work, I’ll still have so much I want to do I’ll need to start a schedule.

(True story: Driving home from last year’s Sleuthfest, The Beloved Spouse™ and I listened to revered country artist George Jones sing “Bartender Blues” in the car. I had a story sketched out in my head before we got home. “Bartender Blues” appeared in Dark Yonder magazine last spring.)

As I write this, TBS and I are in the early stages of preparing for what will be a busy September. We’ll attend the Creatures, Crimes, and Creativity conference on the 13th through 15^th, then come home for a day to do laundry and repack before leaving on a road trip to Florida to visit our daughter’s family in Tampa, including our five-month-old granddaughter. Then it’s across the bay to St. Petersburg and Sleuthfest, then the drive home after. 

I know already that when I get home I’ll be exhausted. My back and legs will be stiff, my feet will hurt, and I’ll want nothing more than to sleep in my own bed.  

I can’t wait.