by Cindy Sproles @CindyDevoted

Time flies. When I think of my beginnings at the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference, I have learned to call this conference home.

Blue Ridge is the conference I’ve returned to year after year. It’s where I began and where I’ll probably end my career. There is no way to count the number of friends—peers—I’ve made at this conference. I recently pulled out five notebooks filled with business cards. As I flipped through the pages, I saw BRMCWC’s impact on me.

I met my ministry partner in class, and we learned we had like-minded desires for a ministry. Eighteen years later, we are still serving as a team and welcoming new writers into our conference and onto our website, hoping to see them launch careers. I met friends who shared opportunities with me, such as attending the Christy Awards not once but twice. I have had multiple opportunities to write, like this blog, compilations, and even a romance novel.

The Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference led me to my first agent, novel contract, and faculty experience. I met my conference assistant, who helped start and manage our ministry’s children’s site. That site is still up and running. Our ministry was able to purchase a website from another successful writer. That site is still serving as a ministry. But more than that, this backward, introverted person made friends I cherish, work with, and talk to daily.

There is great importance in peer writers. Not only do they become your friends, but because of the variety of talents throughout these people and the directions they each go, you have unlimited resources and opportunities.

Some peers will become your critique partners, while others who write in different mediums and genres will guide you to new adventures. Those five notebooks full of business cards not only serve as a resource but they are with sweet memories—a set of yearbooks, so to speak. Within these pages, I can see those whose writing was only a “moment” in their lives. Others have become million-book sellers, and some are publishers, editors, creators, and innovators.

When you attend the Blue Ridge Mountains Christian Writers Conference, you are in for more than walking from class to class. You make friends who are far more valuable than anything we could write. I remember standing in the back of the room in 2002 and watching Yvonne Lehman, Eva Marie Everson, Ann Tatlock, and Alton Gansky, thinking how much I would love to be their friend. I never imagined the day Yvonne would call me “Sugar” and invite me into her home, or Eva Marie would become a cherished mentor and friend I talk to weekly. I never imagined Alton Gansky would invite me onto his podcast or I would write a novel with his son, Aaron. I never thought I would work in a mentoring business with Ann Tatlock. Peer writers are important. They change our lives. They enrich us, fulfill us, and cherish us.

I’d like to say that I have great wisdom about writing as I pen this post. But today, I laid the pen aside long enough to encourage you to get to know your peers at BRMCWC or any conference. Make them part of your life. Include them in your writing, for they are valuable. Your peers will be your cheerleaders, comforters, and encouragers, and you will be theirs.

As you prepare for the conference, begin to pray for those divine meetings—not just with editors and publishers, but with peers. You will never regret having filled notebooks full of business cards.

Cindy K. Sproles is an author, speaker, and conference teacher. Having served for a number of years as a managing editor for Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas and Ironstream Media, Cindy now works as a mentor, coach, and freelance editor. She is the co-founder of Writing Right Author Mentoring Services with Lori Marett and the director of the Asheville Christian Writers Conference. Cindy is also the co-founder of Christian Devotions Ministries and www.christiandevotions.us, as well as www.inspireafire.com. Her devotions are in newspapers and magazines nationwide, and her novels have become award-winning, best-selling works. She is a popular speaker at conferences and a natural encourager. Cindy is a mountain girl, born and raised in the Appalachian mountains, where she and her husband still reside. She has raised four sons and now resorts to raising chickens where the pecking order is easier to manage. You can visit Cindy at www.cindysproles.com or www.wramsforwriters.com.