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Tag Archives: Writer’s Digest

7 Deadly Sins

28 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by Brad P. Christy in Grammar, networking, novel, publishing, short story, Uncategorized, WLT, writer conferences, writers conference, Writing, Writing Prompts

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agents, editors, fiction, networking, novel, publishing, Writer’s Digest, Writers’ League of Texas, Writing, writing conferences

I recently came across a wonderful essay on technical writing by Morris Freedman, who says that “technical writing calls for the same kind of attention and must be judged by the same standards as any other kind of writing; indeed, it calls for a greater attention and for higher standards.”

In other words, readers will be less likely to listen to what you have to say if your writing is without care and precision. It’s a fairly lengthy essay, so I’ll boil it down a bit.

There are seven, overlapping, sins that frequently occur in writing; these errors are seen in technical writing more than elsewhere, but can be applied to just about anything you are writing from fiction to stereo instructions. One should be aware, when proof reading that these errors occur in groups rather than on an individual basis.

The following list outlines the details of these Sins:

“Sin 1: Indifference.” This is the use of “shortcuts of expression, elliptical diction, sloppy organization, brining up points and letting them hang unresolved, improper or inadequate labeling of graphic material, and the like.” Through your apathy, you’ve shown the reader “an attitude of disrespect: Caveat lector – let the reader beware.” You can avoid this sin by taking the time to be clear and concise.

“Sin 2: Fuzziness.” Fuzziness of communication is the use of “vague words, meaningless words” or using the “wrong words” all together. “The reader uses his own experience to supply the meaning in such writing.” In order to avoid this sin: “use concrete, specific words and phrases whenever you can, and use only those words whose meaning you are sure of.”

“Sin 3: Emptiness.” This “is the use of jargon and big words, pretentious ones, where perfectly appropriate and acceptable small words are available.”

“Sin 4: Wordiness.” “Sin 4 is an extension of sin 3.” This is the use of “more words than necessary to do the job.” To avoid committing these sins, simply reverse the mechanism: say what you have to in the fewest and clearest words possible.

“Sin 5: Bad Habits.” This is “use of pat phrases, awkward expressions, confusing sentence structure, that have, unfortunately, become second nature.”

“Sin 6: Deadly Passive.” This is the use of the passive that “takes the life out of writing, making everything impersonal, eternal, remote and dead.” Writers will often use this sin as a way to make “their subject seem weightier, and their accomplishment more impressive.”

“Sin 7: Mechanical Errors.” This sin is “the easiest one to recognize, the easiest one to deal with quantitatively, so to speak, and the easiest one to resist. These are dangling participles and other types of poorly placed modifiers, and ambiguous references amongst others.

“The seven sins of technical writing are to be avoided not so much by a specific awareness of each, accompanied by specific penance for each, as by a more general awareness, by an attitude toward subject matter writing process, and reader that can be best described as respectful.” …The only aids depend on are… a good dictionary, …any of the several volumes by H. W. Fowler, and occasional essays, here and there.”

“Technical writing must be as rationally shaped as a technical object. …It is pointless for the design engineer to use three bolts where one would do. …Technical writing – informative writing of any sort—should be clean, as functional, as inevitable as any modern machine designed to do a job well.”

Brad

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Lessons Learned: Day 3 of the WLT Agents and Editors Conference

21 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by Brad P. Christy in antagonist, creative, dark fantasy, fantasy, Grammar, networking, novel, Patriot, Pen Name, publishing, short story, Uncategorized, web sites, WLT, writer conferences, writers conference, Writing, Writing Prompts

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agents, Chuck Sambuchino, editors, Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, fiction, networking, novel, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Published, Writer’s Digest, Writer’s Digest Guide to Literary Agents, Writers’ League of Texas, Writing, writing conferences

If you’ve been following in recent weeks, you already know the things I did to get ready for the Writer’s League of Texas (WLT) Agents and Editors Conference in Austin, TX. This week, I’ll wrap up my adventure and tell you how I ended it on a good note.

After an exceptionally good night, 8:00 came around way too soon. I got up and polished off any rough edges to make myself as presentable as possible. I harp on this a lot, but I think it’s important to say that if you want to be treated as a professional, you must present yourself as a professional. There was only one time that anyone would have caught me not wearing a nice tie, and even then I was dressed professionally. On the final day, it was black slacks, a grey shirt and purple tie. It’s the last thing they will remember about you.

I still didn’t have any appointments to speak with an agent or editor, but I found that I really didn’t need to as long as I was confident and could sum up my work in about 30 seconds. Again, it’s not rude to approach an agent or editor, but keep in mind that by this time, they have been approached by hundreds of writers pitching hundreds of ideas, so don’t expect to stand out unless you have something exceptional to sell.

If you have nothing better to do, go back and talk with the connections you’ve made. Say “hi” to that agent in the hall without mentioning your work, especially if one says to see them about a card because they’ve run out. Talk to that editor you were sitting next to during breakfast. Go hang out with the group of awesome writers you clicked with on day #1. From here you must realize that you’re headed back to the real world in a few hours, so make sure you can maintain connections.

The closing session was the Wild Pitch – a panel of editors, published authors, and agents who randomly pull written pitches and critique them. Mine did not get pulled.

Things I learned from this panel:

1) Be prepared to answer question that aren’t about the book. These people are interested in making money, and will want to know if you are a one hit wonder or a cash cow. They’ll want to know: Who do you emulate? What is your writing process? What sort of support structure do you have at home? And, most importantly, do you actually have time to write? These are NOT easy questions to answer if you’re not ready for them.

2) Promotion of your book should start up to two years before publication. Reach out to people in the field you are writing about to build your credibility. Get involved in anthologies and writing for magazines and newspapers.

3) Your pitches need to show that your story is unique, and you must convey that in 30 seconds or less. Generalities kill. One of the panelists became fixated on a detail of one pitch. The story itself he didn’t care for, but that one aspect, a minor aspect, he couldn’t stop raving about and wanted to go back to it over and over, ultimately telling the anonymous writer to see him after the panel. Which brings me to another important aspect: Be prepared to change your story for the sake of the market. This is a business, and I realize you are all as brilliant as I am, but it’s a business, we can make money or not.

I did, however, get into an argument with a writer sitting at my table. She asked probably the worst question you could at an Agents and Editors Conference, she asked why we needed them at all if she could just go and self publish. It’s a fair question, but not in the way she asked it. The panelists didn’t answer her question, be we had a conversation about it. I explained that subpar novels have flooded the market, making it more difficult than ever to get published traditionally, but the reason we needed “them” was because of their resources. Your average self published author doesn’t have the distribution capabilities, the marketing staff, or the clout to branch out to book sellers and international audiences. On a personal note, I want that recognition from industry professionals that I am a good writer; that I deserve to be published. She argued that some of the top selling authors are self published. True, but for every Suzanne Collins there are thousands of unsuccessful writers who couldn’t get published otherwise. She walked away.

Another moment of right place/right time: I was checking out of the hotel when I ran into Ken Sherman, Ken Sherman and Associates, from LA. I’d run into him several times in elevators, dinner, or just wandering the halls. A pretty nice guy. I asked him if I could give him my pitch about a new kind of monster, and he stopped me and told me to e-mail him. His brain was already saturated by pitches, so I was lucky.

Follow up.

I have gone about getting contacting everyone I talked to through social media. I also have bought high quality thank you cards for the industry professionals. This may sound like brown nosing, but I am honestly grateful for their time and see a thank you card as a postal handshake.

I hope you all learned something from this little epic, and keep reading!

Thanks.

Brad

Lessons Learned: Day 2 of the WLT Agents and Editors Conference

14 Sunday Jul 2013

Posted by Brad P. Christy in creative, Grammar, networking, novel, Pen Name, publishing, short story, Uncategorized, web sites, WLT, writer conferences, writers conference, Writing, Writing Prompts

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agents, beating the odds, Becca Stumpf, Brooks Sherman, Chuck Sambuchino, editors, Emannuelle Morgen, Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, fiction, Molly Lindley, networking, novel, Prospect Agency, publishing, Simon and Schuster, Stonesong, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Published, Writer’s Digest, Writer’s Digest Guide to Literary Agents, Writers’ League of Texas, Writing, writing conferences

If you’ve been following in recent weeks, you already know the things I did to get ready for the Writer’s League of Texas (WLT) Agents and Editors Conference in Austin, TX. This week, I’ll go over some of the things that went absolutely right, and while some of it was right place/right time, most of it could be duplicated.

Saturday, 22 June 2013: The official start of the conference. The purpose of this day was to have one-on-one meetings with agents and editors. If you recall, I was a late admission, so I couldn’t schedule any said meetings; I would have to find a way to find, stalk, and engage these agents and editors in a nonthreatening way. I’d already had some success the night before, so I was pretty confident.

The conference was set to start at 8:00 with submissions to the Wild Pitch box. I was still holding off because I wanted something polished, and I was up too late and had too many drinks to put a good product out (know your limitations – this is a business trip, not a vacation).

Things I had on my side: I was staying at the hotel the conference was being held at and I had my outfits staged (for day 2: blue button up shirt, tan slacks, gold tie). Again, dress the part. At breakfast I sat across from three writers in their early to mid twenties, all having an “I don’t care” hair cut and wearing plaid shirts – they hadn’t come together, just coincidence – and I’m just glad that someone at the table got it when I called them Larry, Darrell, and Darrell. I really don’t remember what any of them were writing, I just remember that they looked like a quarter of the hundreds of other writers there. I was dressed and presented myself in a professional manner well enough that I was asked a few times which panels I was sitting on.

By this time, I should have picked through the program and game planned the workshops I’d be attending, but I hadn’t, so I used the light breakfast time to make notes in my program and decide which workshops were going to benefit me. I chose: Market Trends; Writing for Teens and Tweens; How to Write a Love Scene that Doesn’t Make People Cringe; Writing Speculative Fiction; and Build Your Audience: Using Blogs and Twitter Effectively.

On the subject of breakfast, I am a complete caffeine addict. If I don’t get a couple cups of coffee in the morning, I am an irritable mess. BUT, I am also aware that coffee gives you fairly bad breath, and being that this is all about networking and meeting industry professionals, I was hell-bent on not having my impression on them be the guy with rank breath. No coffee or anything with onions, garlic, etc, passed my lips. Eventually I did have to have coffee, but I also ran to my room to brush my teeth after.

Market Trends: I learned that cultural anxieties not only sell, but endure. Romance is always trendy. Westerns are dead on the bookshelves of Barnes and Noble (yet agents seemed overly excited about Westerns). And consider backlash. Fads come and go, and if you want to ride that rollercoaster, counter the trends in your writing so you’ll be ahead of the game when the pendulum swings the other way.

I noticed that some of the agents were also tasked to sit on workshop panels, and that they hang out for a few minutes afterwards. This was my in. I found where one of my top two target agents (Becca Stumpf, an agent from Prospect Agency) was going to be and almost ran to where she was going to be.

I shook her hand and she asked if I had an appointment; I explained that they were sold out, but I wanted to meet her. She let me give her my pitch for the YA novel I’ve been working on and she seemed to love it, kept asking for more about it, and gave me her card and instructions to send the first 30 pages. SUCCESS!

NOTE: There is a difference between an agent asking for more about your story and asking you to explain what the hell you are talking about. If you have to explain, you are behind the curve; but at least they are interested enough to ask. Don’t badger the agent if they say it’s not for them; you will not convince them to take it.

From there I went to the Key Note Luncheon. DO THIS. What I leaned: Always write the best thing you can – content is king; investigate your publishing options – traditional verses self publishing; build and nurture your platform; keep moving forward; don’t put all of your eggs in one basket; you will not always write what you love for money; don’t believe everything you hear; editors are looking for reasons to say “no,” don’t give them any; recognize the value of your writing – maximize your ideas; put down the remote control and write the book.

Also, ask yourself if you can give up what you like to do what you love. You have to be committed or you will fail.

After lunch, I headed off to How to Write a Love Scene That Doesn’t Make People Cringe. Since I am writing YA at the moment, I figured this would be a worthwhile class. I didn’t expect a class on Erotica. In any case, what I learned was a sex scene needs to have a purpose for being there, not just filler. I had a good conversation with the instructor afterwards about how I wrote a graphic scene in my book ‘Immolate’ that was kind of disturbing, and how my dad gave the book to my grandmother to read.

NOTE: Your family WILL buy your books, and probably read them too.

I didn’t get much from the Speculative Writing workshop, aside from make your made-up worlds realistic.

In the last workshop, I learned: Promotion starts as early as two years before publication; start targeting your audience through social media ahead of time – write articles and get involved with anthologies of a related genre; and use social media to reach out to professionals in the areas you are writing about.

When you meet new people, especially in crowds, everyone gets excited and will make plans to hang out after the conference. This was no different for me, however, when it came to it; everyone else had better things to do, leaving me by myself in the lobby. So I struck up a conversation with one of the WLT volunteers.

This is when my big right place/right time moment happened.

The WLT President (Mick Normington) stopped as he was walking by and asked which agency I worked for or if I was an editor. I told him I was a writer attending the conference, and he invited me to the agents and editors private dinner down the street.

Luck favors the prepared.

You do not pass up opportunities like this. I got to make connections and socialize with industry professionals on a personal basis. I even got a very good idea for a historical fiction novel during a conversation with Molly Lindley, an editor from Simon and Schuster.

I did NOT talk about anything I was working on. My goal was to blend in, not point out that I was a novice writer, or ruin their one chance to get away from the constant pandering. It just seemed rude to me.

After dinner, I went out and listened to some live music with some of the agents, where Emmanuelle Morgen, an agent from Stonesong, asked me what I was working on and for the first 30 pages.

It was an incredible night.

Brad

Lessons Learned: Day 1 of the WLT Agents and Editors Conference

06 Saturday Jul 2013

Posted by Brad P. Christy in antagonist, creative, dark fantasy, fantasy, Grammar, networking, novel, Pen Name, publishing, short story, Uncategorized, WLT, writer conferences, writers conference, Writing, Writing Prompts

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agents, Brad McLelland, Brooks Sherman, Chuck Sambuchino, Dustin Bass, editors, Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, fiction, Gloria Bankler, Kat Patrick, Marcy Posner, networking, novel, Taylor Martindale, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Published, Writer’s Digest, Writer’s Digest Guide to Literary Agents, Writers’ League of Texas, Writing, writing conferences

If you followed last week’s post, you already know the steps I went through to get ready for the Writer’s League of Texas (WLT) Agents and Editors Conference. I’ll tell you right now that even if you follow everything to a tee, you will forget something. I know I did.

To add to my list from last week: Sign up for everything. It will cost you, but it will be worth it from both an exposure and education standpoint. When I found out that I was able to attend, I signed up for the Pre-Conference Workshop and the Keynote Luncheon. I was not, however, able to sign up for any of the sold out agent and/or editor one-on-one slots (10 to 20 minute sessions where it’s just you and them in a speed dating interview).

My intended timeline for Day 1 (Friday) went as such: 8:00 wakeup and shower; 9:00 have copies of my first chapter, synopsis, and query made, and package; 10:00 pick up rental car; 10:30 pack the car and head to Austin; 11:30 check in and sign up for any one-on-one sessions that may be available; 3:00 Pre-Conference Workshop; 5:30 Writer’s Coffeehouse Welcome Session and Mixer.

It was a good plan.

8:00 – I got up and got moderately ready, had a cup of coffee and was out the door. The copies and packaging was not as easy as I thought it would be, but looked good in the end.

10:45 – I got home and had to take another shower because, frankly, I was starting to freak-out and was nervously sweating. I threw on my Day 1 daytime look (brown slacks, tan shirt, cornflower blue tie), and was out the door again.

11:00 – The rental place didn’t have a car ready, saying that I was supposed to pick it up at 10:00. A reasonable person would have thought it would have been ready an hour before, but arguing got me nowhere. Eventually I got the rental car… at about 11:45.

12:00 – I was on the road. I really hadn’t counted on hitting Austin’s lunch-time traffic, which I admit was a tad naïve seeming the conference was in downtown Austin.

1:45 – I arrived at the hotel, checked in, threw my luggage in my room, grabbed my writing bag, and made my way to check in with the conference.

The conference had a Wild Pitch Box. The idea was that you could print off a copy of your written pitch – the abbreviated presentation of what you have to sell – that could be up to 250 words long and, on the last day, it could be randomly drawn and critiqued by a panel of industry professionals in front of all of the agents and editors. Having done extensive homework, and being very confident in my abilities, I had this ready to go and dropped my submissions in the box.

From there I walked around and met a few of the other early arrivals. I noticed right off that I was one of very few that wore a tie.

3:00 – I sat at the nearest table to the front of the Pre-Conference Workshop with the Keynote Speaker, Chuck Sambuchino. With pen and pad in hand, I prepared for a class from the expert on “Prep your Pitch.” 20 minutes in, I abandoned my notebook and started making notes directly on my “polished” work.

What I learned about making a 3-10 sentence pitch:
1. Identify your main characters (no more than a few).
2. What is unique about your main character?
3. What is the inciting incident?
4. What is the plot?
5. What are the complications?
6. What are the stakes if your protagonist fails?
7. Don’t give away the ending.

Mention your credentials if they made you money. Nobody cares if your friends and family love your work, or even if you’ve been published in a high school/college newsletter. The industry is a money making industry. Generalities will also sink a pitch. Be specific. Elicit emotions. And, what qualifies YOU to write this novel?

I spoke with Mr. Sambuchino after his brilliant class, and ran my pitch by him. He said it was “terrible.” It’s a little humbling when the Keynote Speaker tells you that, but it’s exactly what I needed to hear, and he gave me some suggestions to be more effective. I left the class feeling more nervous than ever, and pulled my terrible pitches from the Wild Pitch Box.

5:30 – I changed into my Day 1 evening look (charcoal gray slacks, black shirt, and bright pink tie), and headed to the Welcome Session and Mixer. Again, not very many people dressed up for the event. Conscious to not get any snacks or drinks that would ruin my breath, I took a seat and started conversations. I hadn’t noticed that I was sitting next to Marcy Posner, an agent with Folio Literary Management, who is a very nice woman that doesn’t represent my genre.

After the formal introductions of the faculty and welcome to the 20th Annual Agents and Editors Conference, they opened the bar and encouraged us to mingle. Hundreds of writers meandered about, most of which seemed to know someone else there, unlike myself who didn’t know a soul. What I had on my side was an outgoing personality, quick wit, was dressed to be noticed, and an in-depth knowledge of the industry. I talked with quite a few writers, practicing and refining my pitch until I felt comfortable enough to actually approach an agent.

Remember going to middle school dances and wanting to ask a girl you like to dance, but you had no idea how to approach her? What if you panic? What if she says no? It’s a lot of pressure.

But I had done my homework. At the top of my list was Brooks Sherman, an agent with Fine Print Literary Management, whose bio included a line about opening with a funny story. I also knew he’s done work with the Peace Corps in Africa, so I shook his hand and told him a story about when I was in Korea that got him laughing. I then asked him if I could give him my pitch for a horror novel, which I did, and he gave me his card and told me to send him some pages. SUCCESS! I shook his hand again and got a drink as fast as I could.

An unexpected success happened while I was talking with another writer off to the side. I was telling him about a YA novel I’m working on, and Taylor Martindale, an agent from Full Circle Literary, overheard the conversation. She gave me her card and told me to send her some pages. Talk about a confidence booster.

I later ran into Chuck Sambuchino, who remembered my name and noticed I had changed my outfit. Again, dress to be remembered.

After the event was over at about 8:00, I was enjoying a glass of wine, and fell in, quite by accident, with an amazing group of writers (Brad McLelland, Gloria Bankler, Dustin Bass, and Kat Patrick). We practiced our pitches and laughed until we went hoarse over dinner. Again, networking and making friends.

Next week, I’ll go into Day 2: lots of classes and a chance meeting that opened doors.

Brad

Lessons Learned: Prep Work

28 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by Brad P. Christy in antagonist, creative, dark fantasy, fantasy, Grammar, honey badger, networking, novel, Pen Name, publishing, short story, Uncategorized, vampires, web sites, writer conferences, Writing, Writing Prompts

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agents, Andy Harp, Chuck Sambuchino, David Morrell, editors, Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, fiction, networking, novel, publishing, Ricki Schultz, Steve Berry, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Published, Writer’s Digest, Writer’s Digest Guide to Literary Agents, Writers’ League of Texas, Writing, writing conferences

Last weekend I attended the Writers’ League of Texas Agents and Editors Conference in Austin, and accomplished more in a few days than I have in four years of passively querying agents.

Que?

Conferences are all about networking with workshops and speeches sprinkled on top. By attending a conference and meeting an agent first hand, you go to the top of the slush pile (industry-speak for a mound of query letters that will eventually find their way into the shredder). Remember, I have a very demanding, fulltime job and still found time to get all of this done.

The key to success, I found, was preparation meets opportunity. Over the next few weeks, I’ll go over what I did to get noticed as a fresh new face to the industry (which is just a polite way of saying that I was neophyte, which is just an obnoxious way of saying I had no idea what I was doing).

This week will be all about the preparation.

Step #1: Information Hoarding

This step will be continuous in the weeks leading up to the conference. Being a student of writing, I wanted to know what the precedence was. Piled up beside me are the latest versions of Writer’s Digest Guide to Literary Agents, The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Getting Published, and a slew of articles both paperback and online. Each will give you vague directions on what to expect, but I found an article in The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published by Ricki Schultz to be the most informative. From there, I built my check list.

The next step was to study the conference itself. Who was going to attend? What did they represent? How the hell was I going to talk with these industry giants in a way that made them love me? So I put together a spreadsheet with their names, pictures, agencies, what they represented, who they already represented, and poured through interviews and personal websites to find anything I could open with besides, “I hope this isn’t creepy, but I’ve been watching you for some time now…”

Step #2: Location

This one is time sensitive, so it gets a little priority. Get a room at the hotel the conference is being held at. Not only is it convenient, but all of the speakers, faculty, agents and editors will be staying there as well. Remember that conferences are mostly about networking, and a chance meeting or cocktail outside business hours can be invaluable.

Step #3: Look Professional

Yes, as a writer you are a free spirit; a deep, rebel soul that cannot be contained and snubs their nose at society. Good for you. But if you are attending a conference, you’ll want to at least look professional. That means you shave off the dreadlocked beard and clip the 10-inch fingernails before you exit your Shoe Bomber cabin in the woods. In my case, I have been in the military so long I wouldn’t know what to do with long hair (over one-inch in length) let alone have a decent wardrobe. I think I had one dusty tie in the back of my closet from the 1990s. Since I was not going to wear camouflage and body armor, I went shopping, and spent three hours in the Russian Gulog men’s department trying on outfit after outfit. There were return trips. Result: I was very professionally dressed.

Miscellaneous: I had business cards made – NICE business cards made, for which I was complimented on and asked where I got them (Zazzle.com). I needed something to carry around notebooks, pamphlets, pens, etc, so my lovely wife bought me a fantastic leather case (RusticLeather.com), for which I was complimented on. I’m not saying that looking like a professional made me any better a writer than any of my counterparts, just that first impressions are important. But, as I will go over later, it did open a unique opportunity.

Step #4: Practice your Pitch

There is no way to over-emphasize the importance of this step. In 2010, I met David Morrell, Steve Berry, and Andy Harp in Baghdad. David Morrell asked me what my novel was about and I could not articulate the answer. I was determined that I wouldn’t choke again. So, I went over it and over it with my wife. It’s incredibly hard to boil down the complexities of a novel – YOUR novel – into a couple of quick sentences. Writers have a nasty habit of getting married to the details and I am no different. Have a friend ask you what your book is about and keep it simple. If the agent or editor wants to know more, tell them more then and only then.

For example: A great white shark terrorizes a small town off the coast of New England. Quick, clean and to the point.

Step #5: House Keeping

Polish your work. Though I spent the most time on this step, I put it next to last in the priorities because of hindsight. I’d read in a few places that you need to have a solid synopsis and the first chapter of your manuscript printed and ready to go in case they ask for it. I was killing myself getting this done. I had folders set up with business cards, a synopsis and the first chapter of both novels; 10 copies of each plus one for me to reference. It was beautiful, right down to the use of paper clips because, supposedly, agents and editors hate staples. I lugged all of these copies around for hours until the Key Note Speaker, Chuck Sambuchino, told us that agents will absolutely NOT ask for hard copies of anything. And he was right. They will, however, ask you to e-mail work to them if you can sell it.

Step #6: Breathe

My nerves were shot leading up to the conference. I got maybe a few hours of sleep a night, and practiced breathing exercises just to keep myself from going into a full blown panic attack. Seeming how I have deployed and found myself in extremely dangerous, life and death situations without batting an eye, it sounds kind of ridiculous, but I assure you that it happens. Just breathe. You will do fine, especially if you come prepared.

Next week, I will go into the first day of the conference and what I did to get noticed and some great people I met (who may or may not be infected by the T Virus).

Brad

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