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Post Writers Conference Feels

~ Kim Olgren ~ Leave a comment

The one writers conference I make a point to attend every year (not just because I’m the president) has ended and I am emerging from my post-conference coma. Pikes Peak Writers Conference 2025 was difficult in some ways and absolutely amazing in others. We had some people with loved ones in hospice or who had lost loved ones in the time immediately before or during conference. They were such troopers and they found themselves surrounded by the love and support of 200+ peers even if those peers didn’t know what was going on because PPWC has something unique and amazing that you can’t get at any other conference. There is an open, friendly, and supportive atmosphere that permeates every corner of every space we occupy in the hotel.

As president, my primary goal is to shake the hand of every attendee and help them understand that we are there to help and no questions is silly. You know you’re fulfilling your mission when you get feedback like “The level of positive support from everyone is simply unreal – Kudos to you all!” and “I’ve never felt more seen and supported as a writer!”

The level of positive support from everyone is simply unreal–kudos to you all!
– PPWC2025 Attendee

“I’ve never felt more seen and supported as a writer!
– PPWC2025 Attendee

Our keynote speakers were simply fabulous. USA Today bestselling author Avery Flynn put all the feels into her Friday welcome lunch keynote. New York Times bestselling author John Gilstrap reminded us that life is too short to squander the gift and talent we’ve been given in his Saturday night banquet dinner keynote. David R. Slayton gave a moving keynote at the farewell lunch about what it means to be a writer. In addition, all of our keynotes and our featured writers, Ricaro Fayette of Reedsy and the charming, award-winning kids and teen author Alexandra Diaz participated in a lively trivia game about one another during Saturday lunch in the Featured Authors versus Keynote Speakers game show. I had the change to have a meal each with Ricardo and Alexandra. Ricardo is one of the founders of Reedsy. He’s a calm and soft-spoken guy with an easygoing nature and deep marketing knowledge. Alexandra’s boundless love for writing colored most of our conversation and it was glorious.

Thank you to the amazing people who put together and presented a total of over 60 workshops at this year’s conference. These workshops are labors of love. No honorarium could cover that. The initial feedback has been overwhelmingly warm and positive. One of my own workshops garnered the attention of a college-level writing teacher who wants to add some of my material to his classes. You can’t see it, but my jaw just dropped again just writing about it. Especially because it was my first workshop given at conference to an unexpectedly standing-room-only room for a very niche topic.

There was a very dramatic moment where I misplaced my clicker and I briefly spun out. But I made myself go down for breakfast because I wanted to check on someone I knew was having a difficult time and that gave me the reset to go back to room and immediately find it right where I had put it but couldn’t see before. Has that ever happened to you?

Thanks to all the PPW staff that works tirelessly behind the scenes. Your ability to stay calm in the face of any degree of problem, remain professional, and to pivot to find the best answer in a flash is amazing! It was a privilege to watch you work. Thank you to the Author, Author bookstore who runs our conference bookstore.

The staff at the DoubleTree hotel in Colorado Springs worked hard to make sure everyone at our event got what they needed. Not a small feat. Special shoutout to the front desk, banquet staff, and bartenders (especially when 200+ people descend on the bar for barcon on Saturday night). Shoutout to Annie, Frank, Christina, Oznur, Jose, Angelica, Melissa, Natalie, Promise, Karla, Santana, Anthony, Kathena, Kacee, Genesis, Amanda S, Eric, Josselyn, Sambiri, Caden, JJ, Juliana, Chazlin, “Martini” and anyone else whose name we didn’t manage to capture. Thanks for looking after us.

Thank you to my amazing support group of one at home, my amazing husband, August, who brought me stuff I forgot; acted as chauffer, driving agents and editors back and forth from the airport, brought our dogs in for dog therapy on Saturday afternoon, and rearranged his tight schedule to help us out with a snafu at our storage unit. You are fantastic. I love you.

Next year’s conference is April 16-19. Saddle up and write with us! Keynote speakers include Mary Robinette Kowal, Marc Guggenheim, and Reavis Z. Wortham. Registration opens November 1, 2025! I’d love to see you there.

If you attended Pikes Peak Writers Conference 2025, please tell me about your experience in the comments. Thanks!

Dear Writer, You Need a Hobby

~ Kim Olgren ~ Leave a comment

Stephen King does jigsaw puzzles, plays guitar, and bowls. Emily Dickenson loved baking. Agatha Christie traveled with her husband. E. Cummings painted. Jackie Collins is into soul music and photography.

Hobbies. Every writer could use one or two.

“Why would I need a hobby? Don’t I have enough to do as a writer?” You may ask.

While writers do have full schedules (surprisingly, “other” people do too), spending time on a hobby can be beneficial in many ways.

  1. Certain hobbies help keep you healthy. Stephen King is among may writers who have been known to take a daily walk. Here in Colorado many writers have outdoor hobbies such as hiking, biking, running, paddle boarding, skiing, and much more. Physical hobbies help your body release feel-good chemicals in your brain and rid your body of toxins, helps you focus better, and sleep better, and that helps you write better. Plus, expending energy on physical hobbies, actually gives you more energy for everything else, including writing. Many times, these hobbies are combined with other hobbies like photography or camping.
  2. I used to help out one of my hubby’s former employers with tagging merchandise. It sounds monotonous, poking those little plastic things with a tag through item after item, case after case of…stuff. Sounds downright mind-numbing right? Wrong! I had some of my most creative ideas when I was doing this work. Why? Because my inner critic was focused on doing the job and not poking myself with the tagging gun, which left my imagination unsupervised and free to make up whatever it wanted to. The same goes for seemingly repetitive hobbies like knitting or crocheting. These hobbies allow the mind to unwind and stretch out.
  3. You need to get out among the people sometimes. Yes. I said it. You have to go OUT. Look, you can’t make good stories in a vacuum. If you’re not getting out once in a while, you’re missing the opportunity to gather valuable story fodder. Hobbies like spectator sports, joining a park and recreation softball league, a dart league, or just walking the mall make you get out amongst your fellow humans and help to remind you of how people act, for better or worse.
  4. Hobbies help fill the well. When I’m relaxing with my hubby on the sofa watching TV and crocheting, just chilling, I’m filling the well. When I’m walking my dog or playing ball with her in the back yard, I’m refilling the well. When I’m chilling with a good book that I’m reading just for fun (yes, you should do this too), I’m refilling the well. Do whatever refills your well. Do it regularly. This is one of the most important things writers can do for themselves.
  5. Finally, hobbies can help you overcome your writing problems. Have a sticky plot problem? Take a walk or play the guitar. Trying to figure out how best to get those love interests together? Go hang out at the mall and people watch the couples (but don’t be creepy about it, no one wants to be that person). Feeling stuck? Bake something, even if it’s cookies out of the refrigerated section at the grocery store, so that you can feel like you’ve accomplished something when you take the final product out of the oven.

So, my writer friends, if you haven’t already picked up the thing that helps you unwind or helps you get inspired, fear not! There are tons of things to do. Some of the writer I know do things like:

Photography

Hiking

Crochet

Video Games

Cooking

Reading (for pleasure)

Movies

Music

Playing and instrument

Drawing

Knitting

Painting

Puzzles

Camping

Board games

Role playing games

Make jewelry

Quilling

Calligraphy

Sewing

Needlepoint

Volunteer work

And many more! Think about what interests you and Google from there. The possibilities are seemingly endless.

Relax and write on my writerly friends.

Previously published on Writing from the Peak, the Pikes Peak Writers blog.

Road Trip! Is There Such Thing as a Vacation From Writing?

~ Kim Olgren ~ 2 Comments

From Julia Cameron, author of The Artist’s Way to Stephen King, author of On Writing and many a creepy tome, to Alan Watt, author of The 90-day Novel and founder of the L.A. Writers Lab, the general consensus of most writers seems to be “write everyday”. Being a brand new blogger working on two novels while job hunting I became a bit concerned about how this was going to work with being on vacation for about a week and a half. I didn’t want to lose momentum on my novels and I sure as heck didn’t want to disappoint the modest following I had worked hard to build on my barely-off-the-ground blog. In short, I don’t think that writers get, nor do they really want, vacations from writing. Eek! I just figured out something new about myself…I’m one of those writers! <Panic! Danger Will Robinson. Danger! Beep! Beep! Woop! Woop!> Wait.

This is where the Online Learning System (OLS) I chose for obtaining my college degree came in ever so handy. With the exception of a vacation in Mexico, I attended school on holidays, weekends, and while on vacation. It wasn’t that hard because my virtual classroom allowed me to attend school almost any time and anywhere I wanted to. Of course there are caveats, price being one, of course. However, successfully completing a degree program online also requires a tremendous amount of dedication and discipline. Coordinating far-flung teams of people to work on papers and projects through online chat threads was both quite challenging and quite rewarding (you try coordinating the completion of a 20 slide PowerPoint presentation in four days on the pros and cons of a free economy for a team consisting of people in three different U.S. time zones, a soldier on a ship in the gulf and someone who barely types in English in Dubai, whew!) . The pressure was constant with compressed courses lasting only five weeks and an individual assignment as well as a team assignment due every week. Papers averaged 1500 words and had to original and APA formatted, with proper references and citations. Who said all online schools are diploma mills???

As I thought about the similarities between OLS and writing in general I found the task of keeping up with my writing much less daunting. Hey, looky there, the $300,000 education is finally paying off (yes, that was sarcasm). True, there are certain environments that are more conducive to creativity, but the same can be said for studying. Where I’ve found I could concentrate on studying with grandkids, kids, dogs, cats, and barely controlled chaos going on, when writing I needed a lot more quite. Many of the tactics I used for school on the road I’ll be using for writing. I have some tools that will be helpful and there are others, such as an I-pad, with its 8hr battery life that I can only wish I had.

Our road trip begins in Colorado Springs heading to the Grand Canyon. The next leg of our journey takes us to Las Vegas, NV. A two-day side trip during our week in Vegas will take us to Los Angeles, CA. Then it’s back to Vegas for a couple of days before we drive home.

Here’s my plan:

I will use certain downtime to my advantage much like Brian Johnson’s mother told him to do in The Breakfast Club. Only when I’m relaxing by the pool or in the ocean or at the black jack table; that is just what I’m going to do. Relax. Hours of riding in the car and getting up a little early, and hanging out in restaurants will give me plenty of time to write on my laptop, in a notebook, or jot down flashes of inspiration in my mini notebook I keep in my bag.

I will not allow myself to stress about writing, word counts, or anything else of the sort and hence ruin my vacation.

I will allow my vacation to keep my creative fires kindled by enjoying all the things I will get to do and see, then writing about them.

Three simple rules, that’s it. I’m not looking for balance here. As Danielle Laporte, one kick-a$$, gorgeous, accomplished woman with her head screwed on straight, tons of charisma, and a fabulous spiritual philosopher says, Life balance is a myth, and the pursuit of it is causing us more stress than the craving for balance itself. I almost got caught up in the life balance trap planning for this vacation and my writing. Instead I’ve chosen to go with the flow, write when I can (because I love it and…well…it’s fun!), and have as much other fun as I possibly can (because…well…it’s fun!). I am a reserved person most of the time which is often mistaken as disinterest by the people around me, but inside my head is a myriad of thoughts and feelings spinning all manner of stories from what’s going on around me. To me, this is great fun, whether I’m in a casino, on the road, in an airport, on a plane, at home, by the pool, working, etc. the stage in my head is always active.

I’m looking forward to vacation and sharing some of what I see, think, and eat along the way. I’m also looking forward to writing about it.

How do you stay on track with writing while away from home? Is it hard or easy to stay focused? Do you tend to procrastinate? Suggestions welcome!

What’s your favorite place to eat in L.A.? In Vegas? I’d love to hear from you!