LTUE 30: Non-intersecting Orbits

by Deren Hansen

Two weeks ago the thirtieth incarnation of Life, the Universe, and Everything (LTUE), the BYU symposium on science fiction that has morphed into the largest (and least expensive) writing conference in Utah, convened. This year the conference was held at UVU to handle the crowd.

I always find conferences like this a bit frustrating at the structural level: at best you can only participate in about a third of what's going on. But what they don't mention in the brochure is that there's as much going on in the dealers’ room and in the halls and lobbies as in the sessions proper.

This year I had to officially give up trying to attend every session that sounded interesting because I participated as a presenter.

I learned several things from being the one at the front of the room:

• There are a surprisingly large number of people who don't simply tolerate but actually have an appetite for abstraction at 9:00 am.
• No green room is large enough when Larry Correia and Robert Defendi are holding forth on military history.
• Hydration is critical if you have to speak for more than a few minutes
• There are an awful lot of professional writers within the orbit of the Wasatch front (LTUE 30 had nearly 150 guest, panelists, and presenters)
• There are even more people who have the constitution and stamina to be pleasant on the third day of a conference that runs at least three sessions for twelve hours a day—with no meal breaks.
• Brandon Sanderson is a Martian.

I suppose that last bullet point requires a bit more explanation.

First, let me state, for the record, that Brandon is charming person—generous and gracious with fans and aspiring writers alike. In our few interactions, he's been the very model of how a writer should behave in public. If you've never seen Brandon at a signing or on a panel, you should go simply to learn from the way he handles himself in public.

Brandon was one of the people I hoped to meet at LTUE 30. Other than the excellent panel with Tracy Hickman, Dave Farland, L.E. Modesitt, Jr., and Brandon, I never saw him at the conference—which wasn't a surpirse: Brandon is a busy man. Brandon's Writing Excuses partners, Dan Wells, Howard Tayler, and Mary Robinett Kowal are also busy people (something I confirmed in brief conversations with Howard and Mary).

But as with the Tango, where it takes two, part of the reason I missed Brandon is because I was busy, too.

Largely because Brandon is practically a Utah county neighbor, I anticipated that we might someday strike up a professional relationship. At one signing, for example, I joked that I was there as part of a cunning plan to score a guest spot on his podcast in two years.

What I realized during the conference is that I'd made the same mistake as the owner of a local franchise who thinks he should pal around with the CEO of a major corporation because they both run a business.

Brandon and I currently have non-intersecting orbits. He already has his slate full of professional relationships. So do I.

During one of the battles of the Civil War, a subordinate rode up to General Grant, gave his report, and then asked if the general was worried about what the confederate general might do. "No," replied General Grant, "I'm worried about what I'm going to do."

I'll bet you didn't expect the second best piece of networking advice to come from the Civil War.

The corollary to last week’s post sharing the best networking advice ever is that the way to cultivate professional relationships is to worry about what I’m going to do not what Brandon or anyone else might be up to.


Deren blogs at The Laws of Making.

Best Networking Advice Ever

by Deren Hansen

Networking. It's yet another thing we're supposed to be doing to build our careers. As an anthropologist, I've long understood the value of well placed relationships in theory, but I've been unclear how to put that theory into practice.

The best networking advice I've heard to date is from Doug Eboch. In a post on, "How NOT to Network," he advised us to network laterally.

Here's how Doug defines networking laterally:

There are different kinds of networking. What Joe was trying to do I would call “networking up.” In other words, he’s trying to build a relationship with someone more successful than he is. That is a logical way to go but actually not the most useful kind of networking. Tom Cruise networks with Steven Spielberg, I don’t. I don’t have much to offer Spielberg and real networking is a two way street.

"You’ll get most of your breaks by networking laterally. When I was starting out as a writer the people that helped me the most were the interns at production companies and the assistants to agents and producers. Those people are looking to move up and they do that by discovering great material that nobody else knows about. If my work is good then helping me helps them."

Perhaps part of my difficulty is that most of the networking success stories focus on networking up: making that critical connection to someone who can give you a break. But if I put on my anthropologist cap and think about what I've observed, the real networks that pay dividends day-in and day-out were formed among peers.

So how do you do it?

In a second post, titled, "How to Network," Doug lays out his rules of networking:

1. Nobody is doing you a favor. "If you are talented and your work is good, you have value in the business relationship."
2. It’s an ongoing relationship. "When you meet someone the goal should be to build that relationship not to get them to do something for you."
3. Nobody is unimportant. "The guy delivering your script could be a major player long before your movie ever gets made." Corollary: "What you need to be looking for is talent and drive."
4. Quality is the commodity. "All the charm in the world will not help if you don’t deliver good work."

Don't put your energy into trying to impress someone who's much further along than you are. (Chances are they don't have the time or energy to pull you up to their level anyway.) Instead, look to peers--people in roughly the same place as you--and see if there might be some place where two heads are better than one.


Deren blogs at The Laws of Making.

Professional Relationships

by Deren Hansen

How many of us wouldn't jump at the chance to be a professional writer?

How would it be to spend our days wrapped in a comfy smoking jacket, pipe in hand, dispensing pearls of prose to eager readers?

Oh, wait, that's the fantasy writer (not the writer of fantasies). You know better.

You know that professional writers work hard at writing, revising one book, drafting another, and outlining a third all at the same time. You know that professional writers work constantly at promotion in every venue, both real and virtual, they can find.

You know all that, and you think you're up to the job.

But do you know how many of your private prerogatives you'll have to give up?

One of the things you must give up as a professional writer is your public opinions. That's not to say you don't have opinions, simply that you're no longer at liberty to share.

Why?

Because professionals must work with everyone.

The mantra of the consultant is,

I'm a professional.
I don't have problems.
I don't cause problems.
I solve your problems.

As a professional, you don't have the luxury of not liking someone, particularly in an industry as small as publishing where there's a real chance you might have to work with them at some point in the future.

In a panel on professional comportment at LTUE,  Tracy Hickman said, "There's only thing you can be sure of: you never know who you're talking to, so treat everybody as important."

In the same panel Howard Tayler reminded us of the 2010 Dr. Who Christmas episode where the doctor, in response to someone who says another character isn't important, replies, "How fascinating. I've never met anyone who isn't important."


Deren blogs at The Laws of Making.