Ch1Con 2015 Blog Tour: Kira Budge Guest Post

I’m sad guys. You see, ever since I found out about the Ch1Con, I’ve been dying to go. Only, it’s difficult to convince my dad to book me a flight to Chicago, for a one-day event, in the middle of the college year. Yeah, not a very good case. Yup, sometimes being a teenager sucks. And more specifically, not having wizard parents with suspiciously large amounts of money stored away in an anti-theft save. Nobody’s perfect, I guess.

Butttttt… Fortunately there’s still a chance for you! It sounds like it’ll be tons of fun over there. Without further ado, Kira Budge 🙂

Hi everyone! My name’s Kira Budge and I’m the associate online admin for Ch1Con, a writing conference by young writers, for young writers. I’m excited to be here today at A Writer’s Tales with a guest post as part of the Ch1Con 2015 Blog Tour, which spans a number of writing-related blogs and includes a ton of original content from our team.

First, some info: founded in 2012, the first Chapter One Young Writers Conference (Ch1Con) took place in Chicago with six teenagers in attendance in person and countless others attending via an online live stream. It was an experiment limited to members of the Scholastic’s Write It community and their friends: Could a group of teenagers from across North America really get together and run their own conference? The answer soon became apparent: Yes. And so the conference was born!

This year, the conference will take place on Saturday, August 8th in the suburbs of Chicago, IL, in Arlington Heights. 2015 registration is currently open on the Ch1Con website for writers from a middle school to undergraduate level and at an early bird discount price of $39.99. Three speakers have been confirmed so far: headliner Kat Zhang, the bestselling author of the Hybrid Chronicles, Taryn Albright, better known as the Girl with the Green Pen, and Ava Jae, debut author of BEYOND THE RED (YA sci-fi coming out in 2016). As a special bonus, Ava Jae’s agent, Louise Fury of the Bent Agency, will open to queries only from conference attendees for up to thirty days after the event.

So Pamela asked me today if I could share a personal story about being a young writer – something funny, but maybe also a bit sad. So, considering the major aspect of community that goes into conferences, I thought I’d talk about my first, disastrous experience working with another writer. Sets a good precedent, right? 😉

♥ I finished my first full novel at the ripe age of eleven. This same year, which was my last year in elementary school, my gifted and talented program decided to split us all up to work with mentors on our areas of specialty. Because clearly you should already have an area of specialty at the age of eleven. Except I did – I knew from a very young age that I was going to be a writer.

There was one other girl who had an inkling she might want to go into the field, and so she and I got paired with a woman who had worked (I think still does) as a publicist at a small publisher. This mentorship gave me the roots that would lead to my later, greater understanding of querying, agenting, and publishing. I began querying the summer after, which was not the best idea because I’d skipped over the editing step completely, LOL, but regardless, it started me off.

The other thing the mentorship did was give me my first close contact with another young writer. There’s an interesting phenomenon that occurs when young writers meet each other and all my writer friends have attested to it – we almost always hate each other at first. It’s this innate competitive piece, like we’re all in the Young Writer Hunger Games and only one can become the victor.

Katniss Everdeen, the Most Bestest Young Writer!

I attribute this to the way that some adults treat young writers, or maybe just the way we think they treat us. We struggle more to gain the respect that’s given to adult writers and that makes it feel like a limited commodity. I’m here to say, right now, all y’all young writers? Don’t fall into that trap. Don’t let adults turn you away from the writerly partnerships that will sustain you throughout your life. I promise, there’s enough respect out there for all the young writers who want to be serious about their careers. The most important thing is to respect yourself.

At the time, though, I didn’t know that, so I had little reason to fight the jealous and slightly murderous feelings I had towards this other writer. It caused some trouble. I know the mentor got frustrated at me a lot because I spent so much time being belligerent and showing off. At the end of the mentorship, though, we traded our manuscripts with each other, and they both really liked my work, which helped ease those feelings. I also enjoyed there, for the first time, a rudimentary critique partner relationship. There are lots of advantages to those.

Thus I started making an effort to get over my negative feelings, if only to get that good critique partnership. This began with the foolish move of deciding to co-write a novel. I’m not against co-writing, to make that clear. You’d just better have a good relationship if you’re gonna do it. We didn’t so much, and the book ended up crashing and burning in a horrible burst of flame when the other girl called my crush and asked him if he liked me, only to be told that he wasn’t into anyone yet. (He was eleven, after all.) I cried for two days straight out of sheer heartbreak, felt all sore in my heart and awkward for weeks after, and thus our partnership ended.

However, there’s a happy ending to this. Less than a year later, I discovered the Scholastic Write It! Boards, where, as noted above, I met the people who would become my best writing friends, my (hopefully) lifelong critique partners, and my coworkers on the Ch1Con team! My experience with that first girl helped me to do better with these new young writers. So as our relationship moved across the internet and into real life experience with the founding of our conference, I found something priceless. I found the beauty that lies in the spaces between two or more young writers who have chosen to collaborate. I found incredible friendships.

And, of course, we want you to join us in that! There’s nothing like being around other young writers, I promise, and I also promise that we’re not like the Career pack .We’re more like Katniss and Peeta and Rue with maybe a little bit of Finnick and Johanna. 😉 Early bird registration is currently open at this link with adult registration for those 18+ and youth registration (with parental/guardian consent) for those under 18. This early bird discount ends May 31st and there are only thirty slots open, so register ASAP! For more information and to join in on our community, you can check out the website and social media platforms for the conference:

Website | Twitter | Tumblr | YouTube | Pinterest | Facebook

The Chapter One Young Writers Conference. Every story needs a beginning. This is ours.

Have you ever tried to write with someone else? (I should try that :P) And what do you think about the Chapter One Conference?

 

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