Hello, everyone! I’ve been attending Ch21Con 2021 online today, so this seemed like a good time to share my experiences with Chapter One Events, which runs both Ch1Con and Ch21Con. These are two writing conferences, one for teens and one for twenty-somethings, that take place every year in Chicago!

Fun fact: I had the honor of being a founding member of Chapter One Events! This glorious journey began when I was 13 and became a member of the Scholastic Write It boards, a heavily moderated online community for young writers where we shared our writing and discussed the book industry. During the five years I was a member, the boards had a really great regular membership. I made many incredible friends there whom I love more than I can express. I got the chance to experience a real writing community full of camaraderie (A+, would recommend), and I also learned a lot about writing, editing, and publishing. Without the Write It boards, I would not be where I am today, and I would be missing out on what bloomed into a beautiful set of friendships!

As the Write It regulars grew older and began to sneakily find each other on much-less-moderated social media, we became eager to meet each other in person. So in summer 2012, Julia Byers, my writing friend and a brilliant entrepreneur, put together a little private conference for us! Since I live in New Mexico and they were further east, I was unable to attend in person, but I spoke at it via video chat. (I talked about writing romance. 👍🏻)

Because of the success of the meet-up, Julia decided she wanted to make it into a full public conference where young writers could meet together. It would be a writing conference run by teens for teens. After tons of legal stuff and more legal stuff and monetary stuff and legal stuff, she finally was able to set up the Chapter One Conference to have its first official event in summer 2014. I was given a position in marketing on the original team. I started trying to raise money to go to Chicago, and I set to work putting together a blog tour. That wasn’t something I’d ever done before, and I was very intimidated. Still, I faked it ’til I maked it. (LOL.) I really learned a lot, even though I kept thinking I was way too young to be taken seriously.

After a lot of back-and-forth, I figured out a way to afford the travel to Ch1Con 2014. Julia immediately put me on as a speaker, doing a workshop about novel openings. So now I was putting that together on top of the conference promotion and my first ever self-planned trip, which was a delightful adventure! I was beyond excited to see in person these longtime friends who had done (and continue to do) so much for me as a writer and a person–and to meet real published authors for the first time. 🤩

My travel to Chicago was a chaotic, wonderful time. I’d never travelled that far east before, and I was stunned seeing all the differences from what I’m used to! Black-and-white cows, tons of brick houses, so much green and wet, a big city skyline, more diverse people than I’d ever seen. My mother and I traveled via Amtrak, which was also a fun new experience. I was honestly pretty overwhelmed, in part because I was so nervous about meeting these people who were so important to me, so I shut down a little bit. I was so scared that I was an awkward disappointment in person!

Once I had a chance to eat some food–Panera, which was also a first for me!–and spend time one-on-one with my favorite Julia doing a podcast interview promoting Ch1Con, I started to calm down and relax into the experience. I hung out that evening with my Write Iters and went to bed excited for the actual conference to start the next day.

We started setting up around eight the next morning, and it was a little more complicated than I’d expected, but finally, we had everything together. All of us attendees and speakers and team members (there only ended up being eight of us that first time, but hey) had a ton of fun and got off topic a lot. There was book analysis, school talk, and general writing mayhem. It was one of the most enjoyable things I have ever experienced. Getting to be with other people your age who have your same interests is truly unparalleled. That was the best part of the conference.

Our speakers talked about procrastination, POV as a central part of world-building, journalism’s connection to novel writing (with Mr. Rogers pictures), movies vs. novels, and character development. I also got to do a live panel with Amy Zhang and Patrice Caldwell, which was awesome. Then we ended the official sessions for the day to have a touristy Chicago adventure! We spent more time endlessly chattering about our shared interests as we rode the subway, went to Millennium Park and the Bean and face fountains, and ate dinner. My fibromyalgia caused some trouble, which was upsetting, but it was 1000% worth it.

The next day was much more low-key, with a smaller set of workshops that included my own. We continued to get way off-topic a lot, but Julia’s query workshop, especially, was helpful. Then we did a little driving tour before going to Union Station. I got more time with the Write Iters who were left and also saw Lake Michigan. Then I awkward-hugged my friends over the car seats, and it was over. My heart hurt so much from missing everyone already. It was magical, being able to find this great group of friends in people I’d never actually met before, and just… the experience was amazing.

For our conference in summer 2015, the stakes were raised. We had more experience, but we needed this event to be successful enough to continue investing resources in. So I upped my marketing work. Thanks to that first conference, we’d established a bit of a brand, full of jokes like rotten tomatoes, Larry the Hamster, and Panera as a sponsor. Now we added ongoing events like YouTube and Twitter chats. We teamed up with popular blog Teens Can Write, Too! Julia continued to show off how phenomenal she is. We had fun with technology and time zones and Indiegogo campaigns. And it worked! We got enough attendees to keep the flame burning.

I didn’t know whether I’d be able to go in person again–I thought that 2014 might be it for seeing my writing friends. But luckily, finances worked out again! This time, my mother and I travelled by plane, and I was a lot less nervous but even more excited (also more tired). Karuna Riazi, whom I’d been a huge fan of for a long time, was one of our speakers, and I couldn’t even manage to talk to her face-to-face because I was so thrilled about it, LOL.

Once again, we had a marvelous time all being together as young writers. Things were more official and less off-topic, but still totally delightful! Our speakers this time talked about teen authorhood, world-building, color-coded outlining, diversity in writing, and the publishing process. We got even more of an insight into the background details of the industry, which was awesome.

I was too sick with my fibromyalgia and such now to be able to go be touristy, so I slept instead. The next day, my Write It friends decided I did need to go see dolphins at the Shedd Aquarium because my username on the boards had been DolphinWriter and I had never seen one before. Once again, my illnesses caused trouble, but I was able to see the dolphins. It was lovely.

Then the 2015 conference experience was over, and I said goodbye to my writing friends. I have yet to see them in person again, but we continue to constantly talk online. They’ve gotten me through so much!

Despite my physical distance, I continued to be a part of the Ch1Con team as the conference’s stability grew. Eventually, our original team became old enough that we decided to add a second conference, Chapter 21 Conference, for writers in their twenties. New, younger people took over Ch1Con, and together, the teams formed Chapter One Events. Thanks to my chronic illness crisis, unfortunately, I did have to leave the team earlier than I otherwise might’ve. But I’m thrilled that some of the original team are still there, while we also have many new people taking charge!

In 2020, obviously, the unexpected happened in the form of the COVID-19 pandemic. So the summer 2020 conference moved to virtual form, which permitted me, for the first time, to attend Ch21Con! It being virtual was not quite as fun, with no travel adventure and fewer chances to interact with people, but I appreciated it. Julia once again had some good query advice.

Then this year, summer 2021, the team decided to do a hybrid event, so I once again got to attend via video. I missed part of it because my body loves sleep too much, but it’s been nice! The sound over video was a bit of a sensory nightmare, and I still missed the lack of socializing. I imagine it’s hard when there’s so much happening in person, but I think it’d be awesome if they had a dedicated person focused entirely on running a chat through Twitter or the Discord in the future!

I continue to be a supporter of this conference experience. Connecting with your peers, especially as a young writer, means so much, and there’s a lot to be learned from the speakers! I hope I’ll be able to attend a conference in person again someday, despite my illnesses/finances, whether it’s a Chapter One Events conference or another. I also hope these conference organizers will continue providing some options on the virtual side for disabled people like me. 😊

If you’re a teen or twenty-something writer, I recommend you check out these two conferences. You can follow Ch1Con and Ch21Con on Twitter, and keep an eye out for registration to open next year! 🍅

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Today is my 27th birthday! 💃🏻 27 is a good strong number, so I’m pretty thrilled. (Although I basically still think of myself as ~21, so.) Anyway, two years ago, on my original blog, I posted a list of 25 lessons I had learned from my 25 years of life. I’m pretty proud of that post, so I thought I would bring it over here for a bonus today! I’ll just add a couple more points to round it out to the modern day.

1) It’s okay to not be okay. This is the top thing that I would want to tell my younger self. I’ve spent so much of my life feeling guilty about my own emotions, but it’s okay to not be happy. It’s okay to struggle. It’s okay to seek out help, and it’s okay to keep having a difficult time even after that. (Toxic positivity is not The Way.)

2) Don’t be afraid of “wasted time” because you’re always learning something. When I was at my sickest, I was distraught at the thought that I wasn’t learning or growing or developing as a person. But afterwards I realized that I’d actually matured quite a bit, even though all I “did” was sit in bed and watch TV. You don’t have to always be accomplishing things in order to learn.

3) The world is both a horrible and a beautiful place. That’s what comes of imperfection. It’s important to see the beautiful, but ignoring the horrible is not the way to live either. Some people will try to do that anyway. You cannot force them to recognize reality.

4) You don’t have to save the world by yourself. One of the beautiful things about humanity is that we live together. We are interdependent creatures who use the mechanism of society to protect each other. That means individuals don’t have to make up for all the horrible things in the world by themselves (and indeed, we can’t–the burden is too great, and everyone needs help at some time or another). It’s groups of people together who will make change. Even Jesus Himself didn’t fix the world. He created a way for there to be both justice and mercy in the eternities, but God, and everyone out there who is suffering, needs us to work together to make things better in the now.

5) ​You don’t have to “save” a man–or anyone else–to be worth loving. My OCD made me believe there was something wrong with me for the longest time, something that I needed to fix in order to be a worthy human being like everyone else. I thought the way I could fix it was by saving or fixing or otherwise supporting a guy. But girls don’t need guys to make them good people. I don’t have to support a “hero,” I can be the heroine of my own story.

6) Society disparages traditionally “feminine” things, but that doesn’t mean they’re bad. Being emotionally expressive in non-violent ways is not bad. Interdependence is not bad. Loving romance and family is not bad. Liking dresses and flowers and kittens is not bad. None of those things make you weak or stupid.

7) Don’t miss out on fun stuff on the merit of its popularity. I have a habit of slipping into the “popularity sucks” complex, where I resist popular things (or things that are recommended to me) just because I want to be subversive or contrary. But half of the things I tried to resist I ended up loving later!

8) The worth of a person, including yourself, cannot be measured in an empirical way. I’ve often diminished my own worth by trying to calculate it monetarily or through some kind of moral consequentialism. It’s just not that simple. We are living, breathing, thinking human beings with immortal souls, and that means we all have infinite worth just by nature. You would never think of someone you loved in this way.

​9) Some things just don’t happen until they happen. So keep living your life and let things unfold naturally. My two major goals in life have been to have a strong marriage and to be a successful novelist. I’ve spent my whole life hoping those two things would be right around the corner, striving and struggling to make them happen. They still haven’t! But I’ve learned that big events happen in their own time. It’s worth putting effort into, but not worth agonizing over. Just keep doing what you love and being who you are.

10) Life rarely goes the way you plan. This is classic advice, always true. It doesn’t mean I’m ever gonna stop trying to plan things, haha, but it does demonstrate how all those anxiety-provoking “what ifs” are unhelpful. You just don’t know what’s going to happen, and you can’t prepare for everything. Learn to be flexible and adaptive.

11) ​Rules only have as much value as the principles behind them. Rules aren’t valuable in and of themselves. If the reason for a rule isn’t a good one, the rule won’t be good either. You still might have to deal with them, and that’s why it’s important to learn how to work around the system and jump through the hoops. But where there’s a bad rule, you should do what you can to change it. (See lesson #4 again.)

12) Your body does so many things every millisecond, which means there are so many ways that it can go wrong. Unfortunately, this means you will not realize the value of being able to eat tomatoes until it is too late. 🤷🏻‍♀️ So take care of yourself, okay? And don’t make assumptions about what other people’s bodies are or aren’t capable of doing.

13) Bullies almost never have a good reason for treating you the way they do. It’s not because there’s something wrong with you. It’s almost always because there’s something wrong with them. If you remember that, it’s a lot easier to keep it from getting to you. And ignoring your bullies will often lead to them stopping–though not always. That brings us to the next lesson…

14) Do the minimum that you have to in order to get someone out of another person’s space. You don’t have any irrevocable right to another person’s time or attention or anything else. If they don’t want you in their space, you get out of their space. Not only is that what’s moral, but it’s what’s necessary for a functional society. If someone is ignoring that and is harming or otherwise infringing on the space of another person, that is the only time it is okay to step into their space without permission. Do what it takes to get that person back where they need to be–but only as much as it takes. Violence should be a last resort. Don’t infringe any longer or any more than you have to.

15) Different people in similar situations react differently. This can be seen in mental illness, for, example: you can’t assume that because you know the stereotype or the textbook information or the experience of one person that you can tell whether someone has a certain illness. Some people with anxiety cry a lot (a.k.a. me). Some people get angry. Some people shut down. That’s how it is for just about everything in life. Every person has their own path, their own slightly unique way of being that is right for them. So never assume that your way is the best or only way.

16) Communication is an important and difficult skill that requires flexibility. Just as different people have different paths, they have different ways of communicating. We should all strive towards clearer communication that is neither too aggressive nor too passive. That takes work, especially if you didn’t learn it as a kid, but it’s worth it. At the same time, it’s vital to recognize people’s limitations. Just because someone can’t communicate to you in a way you understand doesn’t mean that they aren’t worth listening to. Keep working towards that place where the two of you can better connect.

17) Anyone can be redeemed, but not everyone chooses to be. You can’t make that choice for anyone else. If someone is hurting other people, focus on protecting yourself and others, not on “changing” the perpetrator. (Some people might also choose to keep being harmed, and no matter how much you love them, you can’t make that choice for them, either. This is a fact that might be even harder to face.)

18) One of the most important things for you to be aware of is how little you know. There’s an infinity of knowledge out there, more than even humanity collectively could imagine. So never think that you know it all. Never think that someone else’s perspective doesn’t have value.

19) Learn your limits and then stay at the very edge of them. This advice originally came from my time at Mayo Clinic, but I think it applies to a lot of things in my life. It’s important that you challenge yourself so that you can learn and grow and expand your limits, but if you go over the edge, you will have a setback rather than the growth you wanted. Be careful with striking that balance! Remember that balance is something that shifts often. It’s a lifelong journey.

20) If you’re unhappy, don’t be afraid to make a change. I learned this the most during college, when I realized that I could resolve some of my unhappiness by making changes, such as changing classes, changing majors, or even changing schools. You don’t have to stay on the path you’re already on. Your choices aren’t a one-and-done. Now, with all that said…

21) There are some problems you can’t run away from. ​Sometimes, you can make a few changes, and your situation will improve. But when the problem is deeper, you can’t escape it by developing a new lifestyle or making new friends or moving to a new place. This is the case for things like mental illness, chronic illness, or past trauma. You need to face them head-on and work your way through them. Otherwise, you may escape for a short time, but they will come back around again.

22) Sometimes friendships end, and that’s okay. I’ve had many times in my life where I was terrified of losing my friends. In the end, I did lose many of them–but that’s okay. Friendships can end badly or prematurely, but often, they end naturally, when they are meant to. And the fact that they end doesn’t diminish their value. The same goes for many other things, like hobbies or trunking a novel.

​23) The human mind is more terrifying than anything else out there. I lost a lot of my innocence around fourth grade, when I had an intense, months-long episode of melissophobia. Afterwards, I was sobered by the fact that my mind could create such darkness. I’d never imagined that kind of twisted fearfulness could exist inside me. It took me a while to start trusting myself again. Mental illnesses like that are just one example of the awe-inspiring power of the human mind.

24) You can endure more than you could ever imagine. Whatever the darkness you find inside yourself, whatever the trials you face, know that human beings are capable of incredible resilience. Humans have endured unimaginable suffering all around the world, all throughout history. That fact isn’t a happy one, but it does offer some hope. When you hit your darkest moments, remember that you have more strength than you know. You have the power to make the best of your circumstances, whatever that may mean.

25) You deserve to be treated with respect. Everyone does. If someone is mistreating you, you don’t have to put up with it. It doesn’t matter if they’re “a good person” or really popular or well-liked. It doesn’t matter if you ​like them. You deserve better. Likewise, it’s not necessary to understand something or someone to respect them. Understanding is great, but create that foundation first with basic respect.

26) Trauma does a ton of damage to people. Per #24, you can survive much more than you might imagine, but trauma also leaves lasting scars. We have to protect each other, especially children, who are the most vulnerable when it comes to this. If you’ve been through trauma, while you may never fully heal, do know that you can find your way to a better life. Give yourself the time and seek out what resources you can access to guide you in that.

27) Everyone should be given the time, the space, and the resources they need to heal. From my experiences with illness and trauma, I’ve learned that we as individuals and a society need to act with greater kindness and not push each other (or ourselves) too much. Again, there’s not one single way to live, and there’s not one single timeline. Let healing happen the way it needs to, however long that takes.

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General Thoughts

Hello! My name’s Kira, and I’m thrilled to be here on my brand new website, where I will be reposting some highlights from my old blog and providing new updates. For those who don’t already know me from my previous blog or my social media, I’m a 26-year-old YA novelist seeking publication who also works as a freelance editor online. I live in New Mexico with my family and my cats, and I do my best to make my way in the world with my various disabilities. You’ll get to learn more about me as I post more here!

So, for the first update on my life: I know that it being a new year doesn’t really mean anything, but I’m happy to be done with 2020 nonetheless! I think I’m getting myself together in the wake of 2020 now, maybe. (The “maybe” is doing a lot of work.) For now, I’m continuing my work as a freelance editor and I’m also slowly editing my #OCDStory, with the help of a small local writing group. It’s all a bit routine, but there are bright spots. Like my cat Spartacus, Baby Grogu, chocolate cheesecake, and again, the end of 2020!

New Year’s Resolutions

It’s that time of year! (The beginning part.) With 2020 being what it was, I only managed to achieve 2.75 out of my 8 resolutions. The most significant one was that I read 337 books. I also did a lot of website and social media restructuring, obviously, which was not planned but worth celebrating anyway!

Now, it’s time to set some new goals:

1. Get my binging under control. Binging of what, you ask? Mostly TV shows and food, but honestly, getting stuck on doing something until it’s done is a bad trait of mine, one that gets worse under stress. That’s part of why 2020 was so fun! I’d like to figure out how to break out of it this year.
2. Get better at focusing when working on things that are not quite so bingeable. Like my work. And my writing.
3. Finish the latest #OCDStory edit. Given my chronic illnesses and day job, that seems reasonable, right?
4. Write some more #SnowQueenStory. I’ve been working on my first novel post-chronic illness crisis for almost two years now, and who knows when I’ll actually manage to finish, but at least I can get closer to that ending!
5. Donate more to charity. This is another one that makes sense given the struggles of 2020.
6. Get vaccinated for COVID-19! Hallelujah.
7. Read at least 300 books. I think I’m just going to make this my running goal for reading. I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself, but also, yes, I want to read lots of books.

I would also like to ask a guy on a date, but considering how that turned out in 2020, I think I’ll leave it as an afterthought here.

Thank you for checking in with me! How are you feeling for the new year?

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Image via Tim Reckmann on Flickr.