Community
June 5, 2020

This past weekend I was fortunate to be able to attend the Nebula Conference Online[1]. 
There were a number of informative and interesting panels from which I gleaned 
valuable tidbits of information, and I took several pages of notes. I also got 
the chance to watch the Nebula Awards being given out live, which was pretty 
neat. But the best part of the conference--and one in which I made a mistake by 
not using more--was the virtual chat rooms. One room I joined the last night 
included everyone from brand-new Nebula winners to beginning writers. We 
talked and laughed for over two hours--and the conversation was still going 
strong when I had to bow out because I was falling asleep at my computer.

As went to bed that night, I realized I missed being involved with the broader
SFF community. I missed the conversations and camaraderie and support that came
from getting out and talking with other writers. I'm not entirely a lone-wolf
writer--I've been part of an incredible critique group that's lasted almost
twenty years. But I had pretty much stopped going to conventions and fallen away
from participating in some of the online forums I'd once been active in. While
there were good reasons to throttle back my participation while I was in grad
school, I had somehow continued to absent myself even after I'd graduated.

So I made a conscious decision to change. The next day I reactivated my
membership to the online Codex[2] writers' group and signed up for this 
year's Capclave[3], a local-to-me convention that will be held (hopefully) 
this fall. This week I re-introduced myself and made a few tentative posts on 
Codex. Like someone who has moved away from a city and then moved back, I felt 
a bit of that newcomer/old hand tension. But that is starting to pass, replaced 
by how good it feels to be talking with other writers again. I'm also looking 
forward to this fall, when I can wander the dealer's room and have hallway 
conversations and sit in those slightly uncomfortable chairs that are a staple 
of hotel convention rooms. It'll be great. It'll feel like home.

[1] https://events.sfwa.org
[2] https://codexwriters.com
[3] https://capclave.org/capclave/capclave20

(c) 2020 by Andrew Gudgel 
email: contact [at] andrewgudgel.com