PNWA

This weekend I'll be at the annual PNWA conference. If you're attending, please find me and say hello!

And remember to attend local conferences. Get involved.

Network with not only agents and editors, but also other writers. You may be able to find a new critique group more tailored to your needs. They may be able to impart advice, such as finding agents or other conferences/workshops to attend. They may be the voice at midnight you need to help get you through your first draft/multiple edits.

Take time to implement changes to your ms after attending workshops before sending it out to agents you've pitched at the conference.

Take advantage of extra pitch session time to ask advice.

Take advantage of having book doctors there to let you know where you are at with your novel and what you can do to step it up

But always, ALWAYS have fun!!

Happy conferencing!

Publishing cramps my (reading) style

My goal this past weekend was to read as much as possible to make a dent in that pile of library books on my bedside table.  One good thing about being around other people who love books all the time is that you get great suggestions of books to read.  I had a rather long list from the PNWA conference after attending a few classes on YA lit and simply talking to other YA lovers.  So I put them on hold at the library (I'm poor so I refrain from buying books).  My library list has also expanded from list of comparables I request of my writers.  If I haven't read a book on their list (more times than not I haven't even heard of them), I put it on hold and read it first chance I get.

I began six books in the last week.  During the week and early on Saturday I managed to finish two: Tiger by Jeff Stone (children's), and Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews (urban fantasy).  Both I highly recommend.  Then I began two YA: Deerskin by Robin McKinely, and Tender Morsels by Margo Lanagan.  Both novels are written in a style I do not normally pursue.  The stories are lovely however, and the writing beautiful and heart wrenching.  Apparently I'm less prose and more contemporary (take that Herman Melville--I have a love/hate relationship with Herman leaning heavily in the influence of hate).  I began as well a book on tape to listen to while I drive, a romance, which I probably will continue listening to.  And, because I needed something raw, I began Dead until Dark by Charlaine Harris (True Blood), which I plan to finish reading.

Total: two completed, two abandoned, two in process.

My friends have always labeled me as bitter and cynical (I'm a realist), but I'm afraid working in publishing, in which we read dozens of queries, partials, and manuscripts every week (most of them very very very bad) has made me intolerant of even published works.  I used to be the perfect reader.  I was kind, patient, understanding, loving.  If a book didn't catch me in the first fifty, hundred, two hundred pages, I continued reading, making allowances for why it was slow, picking up on the beauty of the words and the intent of the author.  Alas, the world of publishing has destroyed the person I used to be.  No longer will I sit patiently with a book.  I have cast two aside this weekend (I haven't counted the books I have cast aside this summer), I've become extremely critical of the romance genre, and I laugh if the first fifty isn't the best thing I've ever seen.

As to whether my new reading style is a good thing, I'm still in debate over.  I'd love some input on this topic from my lovely readers.  If you are an author, how do you read books?  With an eye in mind for your own style and development?  Do you read at all (you should, for comparables)?  Agents, how do you chose what to read and how often do you find a published novel unsatisfactory?  Others, are you the kind and patient reader we all wish all readers could be?

Hopefully my discriminating eye will help me in the long run find that next best seller.  And hopefully you careful readers will love it.  Happy writing (and reading)!

Learning More

I love being a newbie in this business.  Everyone is so friendly and so helpful.  A few weeks ago at the PNWA conference, everyone who found out I was going to be an agent one day congratulated me on it and (besides telling me how hard a job it is) said how much fun it was going to be.

I've said it before, I'll say it again.  I'm new to all of this: blogging, tweeting, essentially using the internet for social networking besides facebook and email.  The person that has been most helpful in this is Katie Flanagan, another intern at Andrea Hurst Literary Management.  She encouraged me to start my blog, was my first follower (yay! followers!), and helped me set up Twitter.  And now I've learned that you can generate more publicity by holding contests.  Contests!

Check out her blog and twitter for more information: http://katieflanagan.wordpress.com/

Is there no end to what blogging can do?

While I'm on this soap box about how great learning is, I'd like to repeat part of my blog from yesterday.  Read the blogs!  I am, and as an intern and future agent that will control you life (cue evil laugh), knowledgeable about everything.  I am all powerful and wise...  Ok, I've recently learned I am not.  Queries for example, I've read a good five thousand of them in my four months at the agency (I didn't count but I wouldn't be surprised if it were more and I really don't think I'm exaggerating).  I thought I knew what to look for.  I could certainly spot a good query when I saw one.  Well, ready to learn more?  Check out Query Shark, a great resource for learning how to fine tune your query and get past the first hurdle: http://queryshark.blogspot.com/

What else have I learned lately... O yes, the best thing in life is taking my pencil, a manuscript, and working on my tan in our beautiful summer weather.  So, go learn things, get away from the computer for an hour, and soak up some Vitamin D.  Happy writing everyone.

What's This?!

One year ago, one month ago, one week ago... let's just say it: yesterday I hadn't imagined I'd give into the craze.  Me blogging?  But if there is one thing I have learned in my four months as an intern, reader, and assistant agent at a literary agency, and that one busy weekend at the PNWA conference, it's that blogging matters.  If you don't have web presence, and you aren't already best friends with Oprah, you aren't anything.

Ok, not true.  You are potential.  We tell aspiring authors to get blogs all the time--but as I began exploring the world of blogging this morning, I decided that anyone's voice needs to be out there in the community they want to participate in.  Artist, engineer, school teacher, president, opera singer.  If you have expertise, share it.  If you want expertise, look for it.  If, like me, you are pure potential, on the cusp of breaking out of the cocoon into the beautiful butterfly everyone will aspire to be (I hope I have purple wings), well, share that too.

I'm not what you would call technically savvy.  I'm resistant to technology.  My cell phones have all tried committing suicide to get away from me (one succeeded by leaping from my pocket as an industrial toilet flushed--uh, bu-bye).  With a real fear that technology will take over my life and squeeze the living essence, personality, and uniqueness out of me, I try to stay away from it.  But I can no longer live in fear--besides, that would make me a hypocrite.  This blog is, in part, for all those aspiring authors out there that I have told to get a blog.  I didn't have one myself, and yet I was telling them to get past their insecurities and establish themselves in their communities.

So here I am, about to share the trials and tribulations, joys and achievements of my career (the tiny caterpillar that it is).  I've got my scissors, my wings are furled, I'm ready to take that plunge off the branch into the abyss beneath me.