Yesterday American Independent Writers (AIW)* had their annual conference in DC. I didn’t go to the whole conference, because for someone like me who writes mainly as a hobby, these things get quite pricey when you have to hire a babysitter for the whole day on top of paying the registration fees. But I’ve really been wanting to meet other writers lately, as it’s fun to talk shop about writing, and yet easy to bore non-writers to death by doing it. So I just went to the conference’s evening networking reception. That was really fun, and I met a bunch of nice writer folks, a couple of whom are now on my blog roll. Next year I think I’m going to send my daughter Amandine to stay with her dad and make sure I get to go to the whole thing.
Meanwhile, I also went on the Absolute Write forums a while back and found a few other writers to trade novel critiques with, and that has been great. I’ve received some extremely helpful criticism, and a couple of the manuscripts I’ve read or am in the process of reading and critiquing have been a real pleasure to go through. I’d definitely recommend it to other would-be novelists who are looking for feedback on their manuscript.
The critique trade-offs, plus working on my revisions, plus my continuing job hunt, plus working part-time, plus being a mom, are all combining to make life very busy. But a happy kind of busy, for the most part.
*Formerly Washington Independent Writers
Therese Doucet 
I don’t think we met on Saturday, but I was at the AIW conference. It was my first writers conference, and I had a great time and learned a lot. I’m also a D.C.-based writer. Good luck with everything!
Nice to meet you Lt. C.! Maybe we’ll bump into each other next year!
Just curious: Where are you working and what type of job are you looking for?
Pmom! Always a pleasure to hear from you. I got a part-time temporary job in publications at a company near where I live, which is helping make ends meet until I find something full-time. The publications job is fun – I’m writing short articles for the company newsletter and doing editing. I’m mainly looking for a job in my old line of work, which was as a program analyst with the federal government. But the federal government hiring process, as you might know, is sloooooooow …. 🙂