When an agent began reading my page aloud, my heart started pounding in my chest, and my cheeks burned. This was it. A bunch of those other writers’ pages were defective for some reason, but these agents were going to like my first page. They’d definitely get to the end. After months of toiling, here would be my first signal that I was on the right track.

“If I’m able to get some online bills paid and a couple emails sent within an hour or less, then the dopamine hit I get from accomplishing something important (some people call it “eating the frog”) gives me the helpful brain juice I need to do the work that is much harder and more taxing—creative writing.”

Writer conferences are a lot less fancy than the law conferences I’m used to attending. This is Day 1 at the SF Writer’s conference and so far I’ve noticed:

• There’s less free swag than law conferences

• Lawyers are way more fashionable

• Lawyer conferences are much better organized with bullet proof schedules and good technology