Author and editor Ellis Prybylski talks about their accessible Neurodivergent Publishing Conference that welcomes writers, editors, and everyone in between.
▬
Get tickets to the NPC here:
https://ndpub.org/
Check out Ellis's self-publishing service:
https://selfpub.me/
Discover neurodivergent Facebook groups here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/409428960925934
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ndwriterslounge
Author and editor Ellis Prybylski talks about their accessible Neurodivergent Publishing Conference that welcomes writers, editors, and everyone in between.
▬
Get tickets to the NPC here:
https://ndpub.org/
Check out Ellis's self-publishing service:
https://selfpub.me/
Discover neurodivergent Facebook groups here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/409428960925934
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ndwriterslounge
Jennia: Hello, I'm Jennia D'Lima. Welcome to Writing and Editing, the podcast for people who write, edit, read, or listen. Ellis Prybylski is here to tell us about an upcoming publishing conference This is all about the Neurodivergent Publishing Conference Episode two-four-nine of the podcast.
Jennia: Well first, I'm so happy that you're here, and getting to see you in person, sort of, and not just, you know, in an editing group.
Ellis: Yeah, definitely. It's different to actually talk to my edit buddies rather than just see their words on a screen. I mean, yeah, we're words on a screen. That's pretty much what we are. But still,
Jennia: Right? We don't actually exist. None of us.
Ellis: No, we're just thought-constructs. We're tulpas.
Jennia: Someone's going to steal that.
Ellis: You know what? They can have it. If that ends up in somebody's manuscript, just send me the manuscript and let me read it after.
Jennia: Get an acknowledgment from there.
Ellis: Exactly.
Jennia: So, it might make sense to get us started if you want to tell us a little bit about you, and then we can lead into the conference
Ellis: Okay, so, uh, short and sweet about me: I'm a professional editor. I have been in the field for about 15 years. I've worked for several indie publishing companies. But at this point, my company mostly focuses on self publishing authors. I've done everything from book coaching to distribution, the entire process, because I owned an indie publishing company, so I had to do everything. I am also an author. In addition to that, I am autistic and have ADHD, as well as complex post traumatic stress disorder, which is one of the reasons that I've been running this conference And beyond that, I do historical fencing and play a lot of Dungeons & Dragons and have cats
Jennia: And you make maps.
Ellis: And I make maps. Yes, I do professional map making as well.
Jennia: You just do some of everything
Ellis: I do. It's the ADHD.
Jennia: There you go. Well, getting into the conference it just started last year, right?
Ellis: It did. Last year was our first year. This is going to be our second. We have a bunch of returning speakers. It's going to be a good time. We had fun last year.
Jennia: What made you first decide that this was something that you wanted to do? Not just that there was a need for it, but that you were interested in doing this yourself?
Ellis: Okay, so full transparency here. Prior to running this conference I had never attended a conference because they were too expensive. So I'm like, you know what? I really want to attend a writing conference, but I'm too broke to go to one, so I'm going to run one. Because that was the thought process. I can totally afford to attend this, so I'm just going to make one, right? That'll be fine.
Jennia: That's the way to do it. And then just invite all the people that you wanted to see at the other conferences and you get that benefit, anyway.
Ellis: That's pretty much what happened. I mean, I did end up going to the 20Books conference last year, and I'm going to be attending Author Nation this year, but it was—it was—it's absolutely a matter of like, I can't afford to go to this, and I know a lot of people who can't afford to go to writing conferences. We're broke and they're expensive, so I'm just going to run my own and we'll call it good. And it was great.
Jennia: Yeah. And the price is really really reasonable too, and especially for what you get out of it. And that you have all the conference sessions uploaded later too, so you don't have to worry about, do I need to be here live for this? Or, something's come up and I'm missing the session that I was most excited about, so that just made it really accessible too.
Ellis: Yeah. Accessibility is one of our key things that we strive for is this year. For example, we're having all of the speakers use PowerPoint and enabling the auto captions feature for PowerPoint, so that folks at the conference will have live captioning. We can't afford a live captioner, but we're trying to create things as accessible as possible and keeping it as affordable as possible. I mean, $35 at this point, that's like a DoorDash order for one.
Jennia: Yeah, yeah...
Ellis: It's the whole weekend for $35. And I think the least expensive conference for the—generally speaking, I see are like $100, 120.
Jennia: Oh, easily.
Ellis: And those are just virtual too, so I'm not throwing any shade. I mean, they have overhead and stuff they have to pay for, so it is what it is. I'm not in any way judging those folks. I just managed to make ours lean and mean. And so the conference runs on very little with the platform that we chose, and that has allowed us to keep the price really as accessible as we can possibly make it.
Jennia: Would you like to talk more about the platform? Because it does feel a little unique compared to the many other conferences I've been to, but it's also probably the most fun.
Ellis: Yeah, the platform... I forget how I found it, but I saw it online, and I was like, this is absolutely it. So the platform, it looks like a Super Nintendo game. You have a little pixel avatar that you dress up however you want, and you walk your avatar around the conference space, and people's video and audio will fade into being, like in a real room. Like if you walk up to somebody, you'll see their video and audio come onto the screen. It's proximity based. You don't have to have video and audio on to attend or participate. You can just do text, or you can just talk to nobody and walk around as an avatar. That's fine.
Jennia: That might be what I did.
Ellis: Yeah. Which is, you know what? It's fine. The conference is for neurodivergent people, and that means that some of us aren't going to be comfortable interacting. Some of us are. That's okay.
Jennia: Mhm.
Ellis: And it's really easy. It's a light-hearted experience. Uh, the, uh, glitter fights were kind of—the confetti fights were some of the favorite things. Last year, my husband put together this location. It looked like a campground outside. And I told everybody in order to thank him for his hard work, to chase him around and throw confetti at him every time they saw him. He was just bombarded with it the entire conference. Every time—people chased him down across the whole map to throw confetti at him. It was amazing.
Jennia: Yeah, I do think it makes it feel—it makes it feel a lot more like you're really at a conference and you're really there with people, like actual other people. And that feeling you have with a lot of the other virtual conferences where you don't really get that sense of connection or I feel like you have that ten minute networking bubble that you might not be prepared for, you might have to miss.
Ellis: Yeah. The wall of faces thing is just too much for me, and I hate it. I don't feel like I meet or encounter or talk to anybody. It's just like I'm logging into a website. There's a bunch of people on video. One person is talking. There's no like—it doesn't feel like it's in person. But Gather does a really good job of making it feel like you're there with people.
Jennia: Yeah, it really did. I think that's one thing that helped. It sets it apart from a lot of other conferences, not just because of what's being covered and areas that other conferences might just completely gloss over or not even ever address, but that you are making it feel like you're part of this community when you're there.
Ellis: Yeah, that's the intent. And, you know, we have the Discord server, which isn't really super active between conferences, but it does stay up and we have the Facebook groups and so on. But the conference, it really—the platform just does a great job of making you feel like you're there. And I loved it. And it's really affordable as a platform. It was like $7 per person/ per day as a conference runner, so I only had to pay for the exact number of people who came. And that's one of the reasons our overhead is so low, is because it's such an affordable platform. I wish more people used it.
Jennia: Yeah. And it was so easy to use too, because as a non-techie person, I always have my concerns going into something where it's a new platform or new to me, and then having that added stress of, will I be able to function in this space properly? Will I know when to turn my mic off? Will I not turn my mic off on accident?
Ellis: Yeah. That's one of the reasons why our first day, the conference every year, and it's going to stay like this in perpetuity, so far as I'm concerned, is just going to be logging in, exploring the space, getting a chance to use the technology without any kind of expectations or timeline. Just log in, maybe chat with people, figure out how to use it, and that's it. I want people comfortable.
Jennia: Yeah, it's like freshman orientation in high school,
Ellis: Essentially, yeah. And I'm hoping this year we can get some volunteers to help folks navigate things or fix tech problems or what have you, troubleshoot, if necessary. But I was on deck to help with that last year, and there wasn't really much of that. There were a couple of people who had some difficulty, but overall, not too much.
Jennia: No, yeah. So what are some of the sessions that you have planned for this year?
Ellis: Well, we've got Mal Cooper coming back. She's probably going to be talking about Facebook ads and authenticity because that's her thing. I know Quinn Ward is coming back. He's going to be talking about backmatter Amazon stuff. We also have people talking about how hyperempathy can impact us as neurodivergents when we're writing or editing and how that impacts the process. I've got somebody coming in to talk about organizing yourself as a professional, how to do project management with ADHD—she's an ADHD coach,
Jennia: Oh fun. Interesting, yeah.
Ellis: Stuff like that. We've got a whole bunch, a range of things, everything from writing-specific or editing-specific stuff, because there's two tracks, there's the writing track and editing track, and some of them straddle the line. And you can attend either. You don't have to be an editor to go to the editing stuff or writer to go to the writing stuff. You just might not be in the right group, so it might talk past you a little. But it's everything from neurodivergence all the way through, like what you'd expect at a standard writing conference, things about productivity, focus, story structure, all that kind of stuff.
Jennia: Yeah, I like that you address not just skills and marketing, but you're addressing the person as well. And some of these things that they might not have even seen come up in a conference or a webinar before, but maybe they didn't even realize that it was something they needed to look into and address. I mean, I know that's been just personally, I know that's been part of it where I thought, oh, other people are doing that.
Ellis: Oh, definitely. I mean, I've—there are so many times where I've run into something as a creative that I'm like, is this a thing anybody else does ever? Or, is there a skill I'm missing here? Because everyone else seems to know how to do this, and I'm just off flapping in the wind somewhere. What did I miss? And part of it is the neurodivergence. Like, I have a—I think Jen might be talking about keywords, because one of the things that I struggle with most with Amazon ads and so on is keywords, because they're like, oh, just put in what people search for when they're looking for this. And it's like, I do not search like regular people search. All right? I have a degree in European History. When I go to research something, I'm more specific than your average bear. So I have no idea what kind of keywords they'd use to look something up. Like what even?
Jennia: I can see that.
Ellis: Yeah, and also, being autistic, I'm, of course, far too specific about things. So I'm like, yes, I would like my heroine to have black hair and all of these things, and I'll just put that into Google and tell me a book. And that's not normal.
Jennia: That way you might be able to get some cover hits at least.
Ellis: Right. But trying to use that to go backwards into Amazon ads, if I tried to make that a keyword, it would be a nightmare.
Jennia: Yes.
Ellis: That's not what you're trying to target. So that kind of stuff is helpful because keywords are so overwhelming to me. So I was thinking about the things that I miss, I can't figure out, and/ or things that I know I've heard other people struggle with. Like, I've got someone coming in to talk about how to handle the delicate balance between giving tough love as an editor versus being too blunt and upsetting somebody. Finding that line between, how do you address things with a client without either being too wishy washy or too direct? Like, this is broke. Go fix it, please. There's such a line there, and it's always blurry.
Jennia: No, I—yes. I tend to err more on the other side of too kind and needing someone to push me in the other direction.
Ellis: I am way too direct. I'm like, bro, this sentence doesn't work, here's why, go fix it. And people are like, you hurt my feelings. I'm like, that's what you pay me money for. You pay me money to hurt your feelings. All right? C'mon!
Jennia: That necessarily isn't the contract, but—(laughs)
Ellis: It should be! I'm going to start sticking that in there somewhere in the fine print
Jennia: Yes, a clause down at the very bottom.
Ellis: Scope of work: will hurt your feelings. No (laughs).
Jennia: Sign here if you agree.
Ellis: Nobody needs—in seriousness, though, I do have a good relationship with my clients. I really do. We have a lot of fun. I also talk about the things that I enjoy about their book, and I try and be positive, but I am too direct for some people's tastes.
Jennia: That's just a personal preference, anyway. I'm sure there are some people that enjoy that and appreciate it and are glad that they have someone who is just telling them flat out, hey, here's what's not working. Here's why.
Ellis: Yeah, it's all about finding your ideal client. And I joke about being too mean, but I'm not actually mean.
Jennia: No, I wouldn't say you are.
Ellis: No, I'm their biggest cheerleader. Like, I'm wanting their book to succeed more than anybody, except them, maybe.
Jennia: Yes. Isn't that, like, really the ideal editor-author relationship? When you know that they are supporting you, but they're not just supporting you and encouraging you, they're excited for you.
Ellis: Yes. I have a lot of repeat clients, and one of my favorite things is to hear how their book is doing, because I follow them on social media. I go find their stuff, I look up how they're doing. I try and keep tabs on them because I have this connection with them and I want them to do well, and it makes me happy when they do. Everybody wins.
Jennia: Yeah. It just feels so good every single time.
Ellis: Yeah. And I've had a lot of my clients message me like, I'm having a rough time. Please talk me off this ledge of deleting everything I've ever done. Oh, my God, everything's awful. Who hasn't felt that way or also received that message if you're an editor? You know exactly the emails I'm talking about.
Jennia: Oh, I do.
Ellis: You know, just being that person, like, it's okay. We're good. We'll get through this. Everything is fine. It helps. You know, like I've sent those emails to my writing friends. Like, everything sucks, and I just want to hide under my desk forever. Please don't let me. And having that community and having the people around you to help pull you out of the hole when you're in it is very helpful.
Jennia: Completely agree. Which is another reason why I think this conference is such a necessary thing, because it is fostering community and it is bringing people together. It's not just sit in this webinar and then goodbye, or they don't even realize you were ever there.
Ellis: Yeah, no I try and—The whole point of this community was to be a community, because neurodivergent people are oftentimes on the fringes of other communities, because we don't interact the way other people expect us to, or we have questions or needs that aren't necessarily met by others, or we're anxious and shy and have issues initiating conversations. So creating a space by people like us for people like us, helps folks feel comfortable and wanted and welcomed and embraced. And that's really the core of what I've been trying to build with these communities, and we've done a great job. I've never seen such a low drama community. We've had to ban one person this entire time we've had these communities, and it was because somebody was advertising too much in the writing community. They were just posting ads. We've only ever banned for that.
Jennia: That's pretty admirable. I mean, really, because it does feel like a lot of writing, and editing groups, but not editing quite as much, there's something going on almost every week.
Ellis: We try and there's almost no drama in our group. That's been a thing that myself, Leslie, and the other people in leadership have been serious about—is we try and foster an environment where people don't feel a need for the drama. Like, there's no argument. There's just like, hey, I'm struggling with this thing, can I get some help? Or, I'm celebrating this, or whatever it is. There's no nonsense, there's no cattiness, there's no growling. Any critique is given with a very distinct attitude of, you asked for help, I'm trying to give you the help you asked for. Sometimes people have communication difficulties because again, we're neurodivergent. Not everybody communicates the same way, but I've never seen anyone be malicious or mean spirited.
Jennia: No, I can't think of a time either. And I'm just going to say now, go ahead and we'll put the links in the show notes. So if want to go to one of these Facebook groups and check it out, even if maybe, perhaps they're not quite ready to join the conference or attend the conference they can go to one of these groups and just get a feel for it.
Ellis: Absolutely. And I also want to say, just for the record, I'm not going to make you show a diagnosis. There's no, like, forcing people to diagnose. If you self identify as neurodivergent of any type, you are welcome in the community. We're not going to gatekeep. You are just—you're there, you're one of us. If you're not sure you're neurodivergent, that's fine. Come in anyway. Like maybe you'll learn something about yourself.
Jennia: Mhm.
Ellis: We talk about more than just writing. We've talked about neurodivergence. There have been people who've talked about difficulties with diagnosis, medication. We don't give medical advice, but if somebody wants to vent about difficulties they're having or whatever, that's fine. It's community. It's not just...
Jennia: And even just that level of understanding that maybe other people have gone through something similar and that you're not alone in what you're going through right now. And you have people who can offer you, not advice necessarily, but they show you, here's how it worked out for me. It's almost like there's hope when you feel totally at ends, and what do you do now?
Ellis: Absolutely. And also, there's not just other people have gone through that, that way and navigated it in these methods, but, like, I'm not the only person experiencing this. Because before I realized I was autistic, I spent so much of my life, like, I am, so—my brain does not work like everyone else's around me. I don't understand these people. And I'm constantly getting told that I did something wrong, and I don't get it. I don't know what I did wrong. I don't understand why I can't connect with these folks. I don't know what I'm doing differently than they are. And before—and I just felt like this lone weirdo, there was nobody like me. And I guess I'm just weird, I guess. And then a friend of mine led me down the path to realizing I was autistic. And then I got diagnosed, and it's like my entire brain changed and my world opened up, and it's like, oh, I'm not the only person like this. There are, in fact, many, many people exactly like me.
Jennia: And now you're running a conference
Ellis: Exactly. And now I'm trying to bring those people together so nobody has to feel alone.
Jennia: Are there ways that you advertise the conference apart from the two Facebook groups?
Ellis: I should, but I haven't. It gets talked about in other spaces. So the editing groups, like the EAE groups. The EFA has talked about it. Recently, I did an article for Editors Canada where it was mentioned. So I've talked about it, but I haven't been doing much actual advertising, which is my Achilles heel. I don't advertise my own writing and editing enough, so trying to advertise other things, I'm just bad at it.
Jennia: That seems to be a common thread with editors and writers. Marketing... how do I get it out there? Eh.
Ellis: The thing that frustrates me too, is I went to college for business. I know how, but just making myself do it is like trying to drag a horse out of a stall when it doesn't want to. Like, 100 pounds of you are not moving 1000 pounds of that, I'm sorry. Not happening today. It's really frustrating because I just have this mental block, but someday I'll be able to afford—that's one of the things I want to maybe have a PA for or other accommodations. That's one of the journeys that I'm undertaking, is trying to figure out how do I accommodate that in ways that allow me to do the things I'm really good at and then let the things I'm not super good at maybe get help with or find techniques that let me get around some of those roadblocks? That's a big part of what I'm working on right now. And I know we're all on that journey, but marketing is my bugbear, personally.
Jennia: No, I'm the same way. I've always said if I did write a book, I'd be one of those people who just throws it out into the ether and then says, just float away and do whatever you're going to do, and I'll never advertise you to anyone.
Ellis: I do market and advertise my books. It's...trying to market and advertise my editing is different because my books, that's a physical product. The rest of it feels like, I'm important and know things, please talk to me. And that's just—it feels weird and wrong, and I'm like, no, please don't. I'm actually a disaster in a green bathrobe, like anybody that watches my TikToks would know.
Jennia: So, for those who don't know, Ellis is on TikTok and routinely wears a bathrobe during these TikTok videos. I almost wore a bathrobe today just because—well, not just because of that, but also because it is cold. But I knew that Ellis would understand.
Ellis: Absolutely. Like I've honestly considered, like, next year when I go to Author Nation, I'm going to bring the green bathrobe. And one of the days during the conference I'm just going to walk around in that thing and see who's like, wait a minute. I know that bathrobe.
Jennia: Yes. Maybe that's what it is. Maybe that's, like, your distinguishing feature now, where people are able to pull you out of the crowd. Hey, I know that bathrobe wearing person.
Ellis: Right? There we go. I figured out my marketing gimmick. It's the bathrobe (laughs).
Jennia: Well you're welcome (laughs). I'm glad that this show has been productive for you already.
Ellis: Absolutely. We've figured out my—I know, I need to change my author logo to a bathrobe.
Jennia: In 20 minutes, That's really not bad.
Ellis: No, not at all. I think it's record time, maybe.
Jennia: I'll send you a bill (laughs). Directing back to the conference, since that is what we're here for, although I'm happy to praise you as well.
Ellis: Oh, my goodness. You can't see the blush because there's no visuals. But I'm sure you can hear it. I am very red.
Jennia: You just have a little caption below. Blush noises.
Ellis: (blush noises) Yes. Flustered editor noises (flustered editor noises).
Jennia: Is there anything that you learned from last year that was something you either brought into this year or decided maybe you would cut back on?
Ellis: Last year, the biggest critique I heard, because there wasn't a whole lot of critique. Everyone had a lot of fun. There was a lot of positive feedback. But the only critique I did hear was that they wanted a more robust editing track. And this year, we are almost solidly 50% editing, 50% writing.
Jennia: Oh, nice.
Ellis: I really hit hard on trying to find people to speak to and about the editors and really make that a large part of the conference because last year—it's kind of harder in some ways to find editors talking to editors, because we talk to writers. Talking to other editors can often feel, what do I have to teach people who are my peers? Like, what do I even say to them? But this year, I got into leadership, in the Editorial Freelancers Association, so I've been spending a lot of time with other editors and some of the people who teach editors. So those are some of the people I reached out to, to come to this conference. And they are—I think we have two speakers who are not neurodivergent themselves. One of them is the parent of a neurodivergent child, and one of them, she's not neurodivergent, but she is so overwhelmingly experienced in her field and is an incredibly warm and lovely human being that her content will be extremely useful for folks. Anyway, we actually had somebody last year who learned he was neurodivergent by being at the conference.
Jennia: Oh, wow.
Ellis: He came to the conference and spoke, and he didn't realize he was neurodivergent until he started talking to people there and realized shortly after, now, he got diagnosed with ADHD this year.
Jennia: That's kind of amazing.
Ellis: It is, like the journey of self discovery was magical.
Jennia: This is my clique
Ellis: Like, these are my people. I have found them. But the thing that I'm really working on this year—I also, the live captioning, I learned that that was possible on PowerPoint last year because Mal Cooper did it in her presentation. And I was like, that's a thing?? Because that was one of the big asks, is people wanted captions for reasons, I mean, ADHD people, the captions, I watch my TV shows with captions, it's helpful. And seeing Mal Cooper be able to put them on her PowerPoint blew my mind. So this year I'm pushing that. So we actually have captions on as many of the panels and everything as I can. I also put that—I also have PowerPoint using captions at my church as a result of that. So now the pastor's sermon is captioned up on the screen for people who can't hear. And I've heard nothing but praises from people who, we have a lot of elderly folks who have hearing problems, and now they can engage with the sermon.
Jennia: Wow. Look at these ripple effects.
Ellis: Yeah, well, accessibility is for everybody, right? Like, accessibility just helps everyone. There's no downside to that. And that's one of the things that I'm working on and forever pushing forward for with the conference is finding ways to be as accessible as possible and to accommodate as many people as I can.
Jennia: Was there anything that people asked for that just was beyond what was possible for this time?
Ellis: Not really, because the captions thing was like the big ask last year and I hadn't figured out the PowerPoint deal. I can accommodate that. Nobody really asked for anything huge last year because the platform has a lot of accommodation stuff built into it. Like, you can turn your mic off, you can turn your camera off, you can make it so other people's mics and cameras don't show up on your screen when you're going from place to place. I had si—I had quiet spaces so you could just go park your avatar in a single spot where nobody could talk to you. And we didn't have a whole lot of asks, for the most part. Some people didn't really like the platform, but you can't please everybody on that. Some people like Zoom better, but there's only so much I can do
Jennia: Well, and I wonder too, if that might just be what people are familiar with as well?
Ellis: Yeah, some of it might be familiarity, but there weren't very many critiques at all. I mean, like I said, the biggest one was wanting more editorial content, and I think this year we're delivering on that request in a big way. So I'm not sure of anything, but hopefully this year we'll get more feedback and see what people want and just keep adding and shaping and growing this conference every year, because I'm hopeful this will be an annual thing. My plan is to do this every year for as long as I can, and maybe someday it'll be an in-person conference too. We'll find out, but I guess it'll depend on what happens with the platform in the future. If Gather goes away, we'll have to figure something else out. I hope it doesn't, because it's freaking amazing, but
Jennia: It is very fun.
Ellis: It is. I love it.
Jennia: I mean, it feels a little bit like you're playing some sort of sweet little game like Harvest Moon or something, and—you know, not that I was harvesting vegetables or anything while I was there, but it had that same feel to it.
Ellis: Oh yeah it does. It has a very cozy Super Nintendo pixel graphics feel to it. This year we're doing pirates. So last year we did a campground. This year, my husband is going all out and has built a pirate ship. And the different decks are the different conference rooms, and we're going to have a tropical island to hang out on. So,
Jennia: That should be fun.
Ellis: Yes, it should be a great deal of fun. I've been really big on blending the, yes, this is a professional writing conference, we're here because we're learning professional things and engaging with each other as professionals. But also, we can do it while running around a pirate ship. Why can't we?
Jennia: Yeah, why not?
Ellis: Fun is not anathema to professionalism. In fact, I think--
Jennia: I completely agree.
Ellis: And I think that also contributes to the atmosphere of being casual.
Jennia: Yeah. And feeling just more relaxed in general, because you don't have that stiff feeling of, I have to present myself in the most professional way possible among my peers. And, is my grammar being judged right now when people are replying in emojis?
Ellis: Right. Like, I'm trying absolutely to just delete all of that. Like, if people want to run around the conference in their bathrobe with a stuffed animal, awesome. Do it. I don't care. So long as you've got something on your body, I don't really care what it is. Like our rules for the conference are basically: cover your body, and make sure your background is PG, and don't have controlled substances on camera, please. And that's it. I don't care about much of anything else.
Jennia: Really easy to follow rules.
Ellis: Yeah, they're just basic, like, human in public kind of rules.
Jennia: Right.
Ellis: I will admit it completely, I'm going to be wearing PJ pants the entire conference. I am not putting on real pants for this conference, I refuse.
Jennia: Why should you? I mean, no one's going to know. I mean, they will now, but--
Ellis: Now they will. And you know what? I hope that inspires somebody else to not wear pants today (laughs).
Jennia: There you go! What a great way to end this session. That is the inspiration for today, everyone (laughs).
Ellis: Pants are nonsense. Don't wear them (happy editor noises).
Jennia: Yes. This is why I always wear a dress. But anyway...
Ellis: That's fair, that's fair.
Jennia: And that's all for today. So thank you for listening, and please check out the show notes for more information. We're going to have links to not only the conference but also Facebook groups that you can go check out and join. And next time, my friend and fellow editor Dayna Reidenouer will be returning. And we will be chatting about style sheets and sample edits. Please join us then. Thank you!