Colorado Gold 2015: Another Wonderful Weekend With the Herd

Another Colorado Gold Conference (my sixth) has come and gone. No matter how I try to freeze the clock, somehow the moments pass–far faster than normal–and it seems things have no sooner started than I’m home once more and waiting for the next one.

This was an unusually wonderful Colorado Gold for me, this year, and not just because I had the honor of viewing the Friday evening banquet from the other side of the podium. (Huge thanks to everyone who voted me 2015’s Writer of the Year.) In addition to teaching classes, attending workshops, and spending time with my beloved “herd” I learned a few important lessons–and received some critical reminders–that I will carry with me in the year to come:

Publishing is a Business; Knowledge is Power.

From Friday morning Master’s Classes to morning and afternoon workshops, conferences like Colorado Gold empower authors to take charge of every aspect of their publishing careers. No matter how much we know about the business, there’s always something more to learn–and wonderful instructors like Keir Graff (pictured) and the rest of the RMFW faculty make learning FUN.

Nobody Gets “Too Big” For Kindness (aka “We’re all in this together.”) 

Keynote speaker and guest of honor Jeffery Deaver not only attended workshops “like the rest of us” but spent many hours meeting and talking with our RMFW crew. He showed particular kindness to our three teenage attendees, encouraging them and talking with them about their works. Thank you, Mr. Deaver, for being such an inspiring speaker, gifted workshop teacher, and all-around class act.

Many hands make light (and happy) work.

Conference chair Susie Brooks and her team of amazing volunteers kept the conference moving without a hitch (without any visible hitches, anyway) and did it with perpetual smiles. Anyone passing the registration table at any hour–day or night–could see Susie and her team at work, hear their laughter, and receive a friendly smile. The same was true of the army of RMFW volunteers, who worked hard–but happily–to make this the best Colorado Gold Conference yet. As authors, we’d be smart to follow their example when carrying out our writing–and our day job tasks!

Though Often Loners, We Are Not Alone 

As I might have mentioned once or twice, RMFW is my tribe–my “herd”–and both the organization and its members have had an irreplaceable impact on my life and my writing career. Much of a writer’s life is spent in solitary–butt in the chair and fingers on the keys.

Conferences like Colorado Gold remind me–and should remind all of us–that there are others, brothers and sisters of the written word, who toil and worry and suffer as we do, and that we are stronger together than any of us could possibly be alone.

Everyone’s Tail Gets Broken…But Time With the Herd Will Help Us Heal.

Every writer has a path to walk, and few of those paths are paved with fairy dust and unicorn kisses. Far more often, we spend our days on the bottom of our proverbial tanks, with our broken tails in the air. Colorado Gold is a vitally important safe-haven, a writers’ reef, where we can come together for a few sparkling days and nights each year to recharge in the company of our “herd.”

We share our stories, eat and drink (sometimes a little more than we planned), laugh and cry and “hug it out”–and leave a little happier, a little stronger, and far more inspired than we were before. Conferences heal our wounds–or, at least, help set us on the path to healing. They renew our hope. They remind us that we do this not for money, or fame, or success (or, at least, not only for those things) but because we–like all the others here–are in love with the written word.

Our stories burn within us, and we write because we owe those burning stories nothing less. 

Thank you, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers, Colorado Gold volunteers, fellow attendees, and members of my lovely herd, for reminding me of so many important things. I cannot wait to see you all at next year’s Colorado Gold. 

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Susan Spann is a California publishing attorney and the author of the Shinobi Mysteries, featuring ninja detective Hiro Hattori and his Portuguese Jesuit sidekick, Father Mateo. Her debut novel, CLAWS OF THE CAT (Minotaur Books, 2013), was a Library Journal Mystery Debut of the Month and a finalist for the Silver Falchion Award for Best First Novel. BLADE OF THE SAMURAI (Shinobi Mystery #2), released in 2014, and the third installment, FLASK OF THE DRUNKEN MASTER, released on July 14, 2015. Susan is honored to be the 2015 RMFW Writer of the Year, and when not writing or practicing law, she  raises seahorses and rare corals in her marine aquarium.You can find her at her website (http://www.SusanSpann.com), on Facebook and on Twitter (@SusanSpann), where she founded and curates the #PubLaw hashtag.