This is my last summary of the sessions and keynotes I attended at SiWC this year.  I’ll have one more post summing up odds and ends because there was so much going on … But that’s for next week.

Bruce Hale gave the final keynote of the conference.

Here are my notes on what he said:

Investment in ourselves is how we grow. It’s why we’re all here and I congratulate all of you on making that decision.

We can’t do everything ourselves, though. Team work makes the dream work.

Life has a habit of getting in the way.

Find an accountability buddy, right now, I’ll wait.  Establish goals together and your accountability buddy will hold you to them. (Mellie’s note: I did do this, but I have to apologize to Zoe for not following through yet. My first goal, post SiWC, was to participate in NaNoWriMo, and I have done that, but I’ve been so focused, I haven’t had much time to spare for anything else!)

I have a dog, Riley. Half Labrador Retriever, and half pit bull. She’ll tear your arm off and play fetch with it 😉

As a writer, you have to face the Iron Tiger. That’s resistance.  Face resistance with persistence.

It’s how you deal with rejections.  There are several levels of rejections:

• Untouched by human hands – the automated form rejection.
• Barely touched by human hands – they refer to the work.
• A hand written note at the bottom of a barely touched by human hands rejection.
• The personalized rejection – Dear Mr. Hale.
• The open door invitation – Dear Bruce, we’re not interested in this one, but could you send something else?

Bruce ended his keynote with the following quote from Marianne Williamson:

Finally, he played Des’ree’s “You gotta be” and encouraged us all to sing along.  It was a great feel-good ending to the conference.