Post-conference thoughts

What a conference! The Emerald City Writers' Conference was the BUSIEST conference I've been to so far! Probably because this is the first conference where I've volunteered to work :) I enjoyed the work, but I found it challenging to get to any of the workshops. I was only able to attend a few: Allison Brennan, Jennifer Ashley, and Julia Quinn. I spent a lot of time pouring champagne up in the hospitality suite, chatting with out-of-towners and making new friends. GSRWA is an incredible chapter. Soooo many successful, motivated authors and all of them willing to help you realize your dream. I love them already!

The editors and agents held a panel discussion on Friday night after dinner and I enjoyed hearing the "other side" of the writing business. It's a funny thing: writers and publishers are dependent upon each other. Why is there such a big gap between them? Thank God for agents and editors! I didn't hear anything new from the panel, but it gave me a chance to get to know them each a little better. For instance, I found out that they're all human and not, in fact, superheroes. This cut the intimidation factor back quite a bit.

After agonizing over my pitch for a week, I finally decided to trust my own instincts. I found a short pitch that included the main plot points, encapsulated a bit of the tone of Err Apparent, and sounded like something I would say. I didn't trip over the words. The best news was that my appointment was with my first choice: Kevan Lyon of the Sandra Dijkstra Agency (The Sandra Dijkstra Agency!!! Diane Mott Davidson! Lisa See! Amy Tan! Need I say more?). That made my day. I'd already researched the SDLA and just needed to know how to get an appointment. So obviously, I was anxious to get an appointment with Kevan Lyon. Of all the editors and agents at the conference, she was THE fit for me considering Err Apparent is an urban mystery with a strong romantic element and Falling Short is a mainstream women's fiction with a small romantic element.

I realized rather quickly that it must be difficult for Kevan to remember any one person she sees at these group appointments. She immediately put us all at ease, and I breezed through my first pitch without any trouble. One drawback to the group pitch is you really don't get a chance to get to know each other at all. All I have to go on is the way she portrayed herself during the editor/agent panel and the few minutes during the group pitch.

She didn't do anything hideous; come to think of it, that's pretty much all she can say about me, too. Which is good.

I'm giving myself a week to polish the first 50 pages (again) and rewrite my synopsis. Currently, the synopsis is written as a series of notes for myself, so I have a bit of work to do to turn it into good reading material. As soon as I send that off, I need to finish the revisions to Err Apparent so I can start on the novel I pledged to write at Cherry Adair's Write the Damn Book challenge. Since Falling Short is going to take a complete rewrite (what else is new?), I figure it's the perfect book to write after Err Apparent is off to my trusted beta readers.

Motivational tip of the day: Cherry Adair said, "If you can't write a page a day, what the hell are you doing at this conference?" I have soooo many ideas for other stories, so it's tempting to start something new, especially after a conference when you feel like anything is possible. Work on three novels at once? Sure! Why not? Alas, I make notes and write random scenes to save for later.

November is coming...NaNoWriMo...Allison Brennan made me feel better about the way I write my novels. She said it takes her 300,000 words to write a 100,000 word book. I'm glad I'm not the only writer who has to write organically. My short stories are always that way; why did I think novels would be any different?

Back to work, polishing and rewriting.