My First Writing Conference In Review

Well, Las Vegas is in my rearview mirror and along with it the 2016 Las Vegas Writer's Conference.

I had a great time, and I am very glad that I went through with it. I am particularly glad that I got to meet, pitch, and learn from real-life literary agents. I am at that point in my writing career where I am sort of hyper-focused on landing an agent. Yes, I know there are next levels after that, but for now I can't worry about those. And when almost all of my interaction with agents is through sending queries and receiving form rejections or silence in reply, it feels like trying to read tea leaves. Getting to hear things straight from the horse's mouth was invaluable.

As far as the craft workshops, they were good. I think they would have been super helpful for me like 4-5 years ago. As it was, they were mostly just refreshers of stuff that I've seen elsewhere. And so I am still in the position of trying to figure out the how of craft rather than the what. But that's a lifelong journey, no?

I got up at 6 AM on Thursday for the 5-hour drive to Vegas. After checking in, I hit up Edit Yourself into Print (give by an agent, one of my favorites of the conference), How to Write a Blurb that Sells, and Before You Jump into Self-Publishing (a sobering look at the harsh reality of self-pub). Then there was a happy hour and ice breaker event. Which was good, but also really long. By the time 7 PM rolled around, I was desperate for some alone time! Had to hit up the gym for my training plan, and by the time I got out of the shower at 9:30 PM or so, I was done for the day. Gotta love the light and music show outside my window at 10 PM as I was trying to sleep!

Friday was an all-day affair at the conference. Breakfast with some words from an indie author on the faculty, then 14 Things to Revise in Your Manuscript, my first pitch session, and The Art of Pacing and Tension. Lunch had a first page panel (5 of the faculty read first pages in front of everyone and pointed out where they would stop reading and why). Then Getting Sassy with Subtext, Story Engineering, and Write Dialogue Like a Playwright. Dinner had another first page panel. These panels were some of the best info I got the entire weekend. I only wish my pages would have been drawn!

Friday night after dinner I escaped for some alone time on the Strip. Walked around for a couple hours, watched the fountains at the Bellagio, and ate a second dinner of burger, fries, and boozed-up milkshake. Totally worth it!

Saturday was the last day of the conference. Breakfast had another indie author from the faculty speaking, then World Building in Fiction, How to Hook an Agent, and my second agent pitch. I skipped out to go for a training run and check out of my hotel room, so I caught only the very end of the lunch panel, which was a couple agents talking about how to spot scams. Then the afternoon was The Agent/Client Relationship and Whose Story is This? That finished out the workshops, and then there was a dinner with a keynote address from Larry Brooks. After that, I had to head out, as I had another 5-hour drive!

As you can see, it was a super packed weekend. There were so many great faculty members, awesome fellow writers, and lots of good choices for the workshops. It was rather a whirlwind of a weekend, but in a good way!

Now to swallow my doubt and send out the requested materials...eek!

Reports from the conference and thoughts in the aftermath.

Taking the Writing Conference Plunge

One week from today, I will be in sunny Las Vegas at my very first writing conference! (Which would be the Las Vegas Writing Conference, of course.) I can hardly believe it. I have been toying with the idea of attending a conference for a while. I take my writing very seriously, in both the craft and business aspects, and I am always looking for ways to boost me to the next level. Networking, connecting with other writers, and meeting industry professionals sounds fantastic. (People who understand what I am talking about without a twenty-minute explanation of the querying process…!) Not to mention informational panels and inspirational stories. And, of course, the chance to pitch to a real live agent! I have to admit this last piece was the thing that finally lured me into registering. I have not had much luck with the cold querying process. As I embark on a new querying journey with novel 8 (I just sent my first five queries this week!), I want to give it the best chance possible in this rough publishing environment. And maybe having that face time could make the difference—it can’t hurt, right?

So after pondering all of this, earlier this month I decided to find a conference. It didn’t take long to discover that the LVWC was only a few weeks away, right when I was planning to start querying, and within striking distance of my home base in San Diego. (It won’t be the first time I’ve made that drive!) I thought about it for a day and then made the plunge and registered. It’s a lot of money to spend, but is it a lot of money to spend on something so important to me? And the answer to that was, obviously, no. Everything I have heard from other writers is that conferences are totally worth it. And it fit into my budget without requiring me to eat ramen for a month or anything, so it wasn’t too much of a reach.

Now, all the sudden, what seemed like plenty of time has rapidly dwindled to ONE WEEK AWAY! Eek! I’ve been researching conference attire, etiquette, best practice, etc., and trying not to freak myself out too much. I stayed up way too late last weekend designing business cards. Imagine that—me, with author business cards! I don’t even have business cards for my day job. I feel like such a Real Writer™ right now. I’m also trying to navigate the ins and outs of pitch sheets, what to bring, and how to plan out my schedule for maximum benefit from the experience.

I am so excited to be taking this step in my writerly career. I’m nervous as hell about pitching to an agent (especially one who has already form rejected me on previous projects), and talking to strangers is way outside my comfort zone, but who cares? I’m going to be at a professional event for writers, learning about what I love, figuring out how to be better, and being inspired to continue on what can be an arduous journey. Plus maybe a chance to sneak out to the Strip…

The last time I was in Vegas--definitely not for business!

I’ll be sure to report back on my very first writing conference experience!

My #SFFpit Experience

#SFFpit is the brainchild of author/scientist Dan Koboldt. It is the spec fiction specific version of #PitMad. Basically, it is a 12 hour window where authors can pitch their books using the #SFFpit hashtag, and agents and small press editors can fav the pitches they want to see queries for. The most recent #SFFpit was on June 11 this year.

The timing was perfect for me. I had literally just finished the final touches on my query letter for novel 6 and was getting ready to submit some queries. The only problem is that I had no idea about it! It wasn't until I saw the hashtag in a retweet on my timeline that I even had an inkling. But I immediately wanted in! The event went from 8 AM - 8 PM Central time, and I submitted my first pitch after a five minute scramble at about 3 PM my time, which was 5 PM Central. Yikes! Spamming isn't part of it, only 1-2 pitches per hour, so I only got a chance to put 5 pitches out there. Which I wrote in between sending off unsolicited query letters to agents on my list. What a day!

Dan talks about #SFFpit winners here, and while that article hadn't been published yet, I went to bed on June 11 thinking I had won in the sense of #3 and 4. I had a couple new people to follow, and I had put novel 6 out there for all the world to see. It was actually a bit terrifying, especially thinking about all the non-SFF people on my Twitter. Are they going to think I'm crazy? Is my book so terrible that I shouldn't even be pitching it? Getting over those fears and just putting it out there was huge. And it was great practice for crafting a short, snappy pitch!

But a funny thing happened. There were people who hadn't followed #SFFpit in real-time, but they were still interested. On June 12, the favs started to come in! I ended up getting four requests, split evenly between agents and small press editors (including a small press that was on my list to query!). Dan's article says that only 79 of the 530 participating authors got 2 or more agent requests, so that made me feel like maybe novel 6 isn't the worst thing that has ever been written and I'm an idiot for trying to get it published (yeah, I'm at that stage!). So now I can count myself a #SFFpit winner in ALL of the ways Dan listed!

Now that's a good feeling!

So that was my experience with #SFFpit. It was hectic and anxiety-inducing, but it was also an excellent way to connect my work to some of the people who are most interested in it. It was a small affirmation in a journey that is paved with denials. And it was fun! My thanks to Dan for putting it together and to all of the agents and editors and authors who participated.

Querying!

Isn't it the thing we all fear and anticipate? Don't we have such a love-hate relationship with it? Okay, maybe everyone else doesn't, but I sure do!

I told myself I wasn't going to query Novel 1 (still nameless!) until I finished draft 3, but I decided that it couldn't hurt to put out a few feelers now. What if I spend months endlessly polishing and quirking only to discover that an agent would have been interested in January? It's all part of my weird self-perception as a writer. Sometimes I think I suck so bad that I could never be published (sadly reinforced today when I read the Scribophile blog), and other times I think I'm pretty damn good and certainly a couple notches above the other unpublished writers. (Objectively, the former is more probable.)

Anyway, so I decided to send out some queries. I worked on a query letter and synopsis, I trawled the Agent Query website for agents that might be a good fit for my work. I hit "send" and logged it and knew I wouldn't hear back for weeks. To my surprise, I heard back almost immediately from most! (I sent out 5 feelers this time.) They were all form rejections.

Sigh.

Of course that was exactly what I was expecting, but a little part of me was hoping that I'd get some little tidbit to keep my spirits up, to feel like I could someday see my books on the shelf.

Anyway, really am going to finish draft 3 before I try to query again. Doing a readthrough of draft 2 right now, taking notes about things I want to change (on a big-ish scale, like adding new scenes or deepening a recurring theme) and am going to go back and finagle around. Then I can go back and do a line edit for stuff like "Does a comma really belong there?" and "This phrasing is awkward."

In the meantime, I'm still working on draft 1 of Novel 4. Sure, at the end of the year I'll probably have 2 full, unpublished manuscripts and nothing to do with either, but I'm not ready to give up yet!