The Eldritch Post

You may have seen us, or you may be one of us–those painfully shy people who go to writers conferences to learn more about the craft an the business, to pitch our books and stories to agents and editors, to promote the books we have published. Those who wander like ghosts, nearly invisible, among the living and the gregarious, unable to penetrate the membrane into that social clockwork that drives conversation and leads to interesting new connections and beneficial alliances.

Just last month I was such a wraith, a wandering soul, and I hated it. Swore I’d never go to another conference.  I felt profoundly irelevant, insignificant and uninteresting.

In years past, I’ve attended these events with friends, and/or my agent and her entourage. This year, I had to depend on my own shaky social skills. 

Sure, I know how to walk up to people and talk to them. I meet my tablemates at the meals and carry on conversations with one or more of them. I ask questions in workshops and sometimes chat with the presenters afterwards.

In my professional life, I have worked tradeshow booths, served as media spokesperson for my company, conducted training sessions workshops. I’ve been on TV and national radio promoting my one published book and have spoken before many groups on the book’s subject matter.

 But in those situations, I was there because someone invited me or had come to me, someone was already interested in what I had to say.  Conferences are completely different.

First, there are those who have come with groups who coalesce at meals and between sessions to report back and share their recent experiences.  I wouldn’t want to interrupt one of their conversations, except maybe to ask for the salt or to inquire about the terrific session I’d overheard them talking about. And I certainly would not attempt to insert myself into their well established group.

Then there are those unconnected individuals who have been lucky enough or are skilled enough to make a connection with another individual and are now engaged in a conversation. Again, I would not interrupt their conversations, though I might stand nearby hoping they have just met and will expand their attention to include me.

What is especially surprising, though, is to see speakers/presenters wandering disconnected just like me. These are the folks that dozens or even hundreds of us have crammed into a room to hear talk. They are often quite successful, whether as authors, agents or editors, and can draw a crowd of people when they are offering advice and telling stories about the writing/publishing business.

Yet when the throngs are gone, they too seem hard-pressed to assertively create their own connections, to inject themselves into others’ conversations. Like me, they walk deliberately through the halls, up and down floors, out onto the patio or balconies–as if they have some place to go between sessions, a phone call to make, someone to meet, materials to gather from their hotel rooms.

Even when I stop by or pass them in the hall and ask if they have a minute to chat, they seem quite happy to answer my questions, but when I’ve finished drawing conversation out of them, they seem to run out of gas.  I’d considered that they really did have someplace to be, but a short while later, I’d see them wandering or standing around again, talking to no one.

I try not to comandeer their attention and always release them when I’ve gotten my answers by saying I don’t want to hold them up if they need to be somewhere. And off they go. But I wonder if they left because they didn’t want to talk to me anymore, because they needed to do something, or because they just didn’t know how to keep the conversation going.

I wonder if they are like me: more than able to talk for hours about subjects of interest to them with people they know, yet unable to find those areas of common interest with strangers. I wonder if they too have been considered arrogant or aloof when, in fact, they were merely shy.

The upshot of this latest experience is that I think conference organizers should do more to put introverted people like us together and to help stimulate conversation among us. It has to be more than the usual cocktail reception. It has to involve some kind of buddy system maybe using compatibility matching. People wearing a pink dot, for example, write emotionally evocative stories like romances or tales of friendship and familial bonding. Those wearing brown dots write action, thrillers, etc. 

Or maybe we should just wear special ribbons to identify us as the terminally introverted, so the more socially adept can recognize us and draw us into their circles.

You may notice that nothing in this post asks us to get over ourselves, conquer our fears and become more extroverted.  I’ve been working on my shyness for [#!$%@] decades and, well, you see where I am. I still need help.