Writer Unboxed

[Kath here: We’re thrilled to post Dave’s diary of this year’s WLoT’s Agent & Editors Conference. In the interest of space, we are posting this is two parts. The second post will go live Wednesday, July 2. If you can’t wait, Dave’s loaded the entire post over at his website write-your-short-story dot com. Enjoy!]

If there’s a heaven for writers, it was temporarily translocated to the Austin Sheraton for one very long – yet maddeningly short – weekend road show of the 2008 Agents and Editors Conference. I got more done there in forty-eight hours than I had in the previous year and a half of query letters, partials, fulls, and rewrites. No exaggeration.The price of admission included workshops, panels, round-table discussions, and one ten-minute pitch session. You could get another one for a small fee, and sign up for a pitch workshop. I paid. Happily. Money well spent.

I paraphrase The Warriors: we had literary fiction guys next to horror hacks (I’m the latter, so no insult intended). The scriptwriters were right by the book doctors. Agents cozied up to cozy mystery writers. Everybody smiling, pitching books, talking shop. Talking books.

Everyone in the entire building was there to talk about books.

That is a miracle. And miracles, my writing friends, is the way things ought to be. Don’t blame me for the bad grammar. I’m quoting here.

Agents and Editors Conference 2008: Friday, 20 June

I arrived early, ate lunch, signed in, and wandered. My first memorable event was a collision – quite literally - with a woman who recognized my name from the promotional brochure but expected me to be 55 years old and bald (I’m 45 and have most of my hair, thank you very much). We ended up in a terrific discussion about her book. I met several other people before heading downstairs for the pitch workshop at 3:30.

That’s when the roller coaster started. It didn’t stop until Sunday afternoon.

Chuck Sambuchino conducted our pitch workshop. Chuck edits for Writer’s Digest Books. I’m sure he would appreciate the brevity of the job description; were I to tell you what he really does, I’d still be writing next week.

Chuck is a bright, funny, smart-alecky guy who has forgotten more stuff about writing and publishing than most of us could ever hope to know. I’ll tell you one thing he definitely knows: how to craft a pitch. He advised, we pitched, and he edited. On the spot. In seconds. Off the top of his head. What took us three or four minutes he knocked down to twenty seconds. Like magic.

I took what I learned, walked across the hall to the reception at the Rojo Red Restaurant, and bumped into Uwe Stender, an agent with TriadaUS Literary Agency.

“Hi,” I said. “I had you on my short list, but I wasn’t sure you liked supernatural stuff.”

“I love it if it’s fresh,” he said. “What’s your book?”

I pitched it. Terribly, I might add. Literally five minutes out of the workshop door, had I developed it properly? Not so much. I stumbled through, Uwe laughed (a friendly, nonthreatening laugh), and said, “well, I like the water thing. Go ahead and query and we’ll see what happens.”

I query constantly. Don’t we all? How many query letters have we written? If we could turn them back into trees, we could reforest those bald patches of Amazon rainforest and restore balance to a ravaged ecosystem.

Lots of queries, yes. But he asked for this one. I don’t even have to kill a tree to send it to him. He likes e-mail queries. And after spending an entire weekend hearing Uwe talk about books, I know exactly how to tailor the query to appeal to him specifically.

I also met Deanna Roy at the reception. Deanna was there as a volunteer photographer, but she’s a writer, too. She’s also a professional wiseass. She started giving me guff ten seconds after I met her, and she didn’t stop until I was out the door. She is now officially The Sister I Never Knew I Had.

After the reception, I went upstairs and practiced my pitch for two hours. It took me a full hour just to get myself to stop rambling and focus. I kept at it until I thought I was in pretty good shape.

Then, completely exhausted, I fell into a deathlike, dreamless slumber.

Agents and Editors Conference: Saturday, 21 June

I woke up at 6 a.m. with my pitch circling endlessly in my head. If you know me at all, you are now reeling with shock. Since I retired from the Air Force and started my own business, my “work day” starts whenever the hell I feel like it. And that ain’t 6 a.m.

Inspired? Nervous? Maybe both. I still don’t know for sure. It’s a mystery. But I was up.

I went swimming. My pitch didn’t wash out. It would be there, I discovered, until my scheduled appointment with Abigail Koons at 2:20 pm. I was doomed to spew it at whoever might be within listening distance until then. Obsessive much? You betcha.

I pitched Deanna that morning. I’m not sure I made this clear before: Deanna is a) a very good writer herself; b) whip-smart; and c) subtle as blunt-trauma brain realignment with a ball peen hammer.

She said I need to stop rambling and focus.

It should have been upsetting, but it was true. Deanna has this really annoying habit of being right a lot. This should also be upsetting, but it’s hard to stay mad at your sister. I chose not to go away mad. Instead, I went away determined.

I had really wanted an appointment with Kimberly Cameron of Reece Halsey North, who reads horror. It didn’t happen, but I didn’t worry. Too cheap to pay for Internet service in my room, I was downstairs in the lobby with my laptop, updating my website. Everything was happening near the lobby. Everybody passed my perch. Including Kimberly Cameron.

“Mrs. Cameron,” I said, jumping up from my chair, endeavoring in vain to appear undesperate. I shook her hand, praying mine was not like a damp dish towel. “I had hoped to get an appointment to pitch you, but it didn’t work out,” I said. “Can I find you later and tell you about my book?”

Smiling sweetly, she said, “Why don’t you just pitch me now?”

You know that poem about the crocodile with the gently smiling jaws, right?

The air filled with the smell of frying synapses as my brain short-circuited. Why not now? Because I didn’t think you were going to ask me to pitch you now! You mean, like, NOW now? Right this minute? I’m not ready right this minute. My jacket isn’t even buttoned. You weren’t supposed to see me with my jacket unbuttoned. Is there anything stuck between my teeth? What was I going to say again?

When it comes to fear, I am a method actor. I remember the last time I was confident and unafraid and I act like that. I marshaled my inner Brad Dourif, silenced that yammering fraidy cat and pitched the damned book.

She asked for the full manuscript. I sent it Tuesday.

An aside here: I recount the glories of my wonderful weekend not to bask in hubris, but to show what can happen for you if you save your shekels and go next year. A lot of other writers were doing exactly what I was doing, and they were seeing interest as well. If they weren’t, they were finding out what wasn’t working about their pitches and projects. Advice from an agent? You can take that to the bank. Those people read for a living.

We occasionally stopped talking long enough to eat – and even got a free lunch, with Sara Nelson as the keynote speaker. Yes, that Sara Nelson. The editor-in-chief of Publishers Weekly. I met her after lunch was over and asked her if she’d interview for a feature in Short Stuff, the newsletter I publish through write-your-short-story.com.

“What’s your newsletter about?” she asked.

“Short stories,” I said. “I write them, publish them, love them. I hear they’re going away.”

She nodded. “They are,” she said.

“Not if I can help it,” I said, trying my best Clint Eastwood. I think it came off more John C. Reilly. I did my best.

“Okay,” she said. “In case you don’t find me later, here’s my card. E-mail me when you get back home.”

It was all I could do not to drop to my knees and holler, “I’m not worthy! I’m not worthy!”

Book People. Caps intended. She was so nice, guys. Amazing. So approachable. Who’d have thunk it?

By the time I pitched Abigail Koons that afternoon, I had told two dozen writers and five more agents about my book. The agents had given me responses ranging from “not my genre, sorry,” to “interesting pitch – why don’t you send me the first three chapters?” All in a space of hours. It had taken many months to generate that kind of interest in previous projects.

Ms. Koons asked for the first fifty pages. More importantly, I’d like to think we both had fun – we’re Stephen King fans, James Cameron fans, simpatico in a lot of areas. That’s important if you intend to develop a working relationship with someone.

I spent the rest of the afternoon in the pitch lounge, where agents hang out after their formal pitch sessions are over. I pitched to Lilly Ghahremani, who fell into the “not my genre” category, but offered me a couple of referrals to people who were. “Tell them I loved your pitch,” she said. How’s that for a good hook?

Are you getting how generous these people are with their time and connections? Miracles, my writing friends. Agents are people, too. And a lot of them are building lists, which means they’re interested in new writers.

Check back on Wednesday for part two of Dave’s experiences at the WLoT’s Agent & Editors Conference. He shares plenty of juicy nuggets for those hoping to attend a writer’s conference soon.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS