Bright Lights, Big City Pt. 3

Sunday morning was bittersweet. I had a couple more sessions to attend before hopping on my flight back to Charlotte, but was just getting the hang of things in NYC. The one hangup I'd had with the whole weekend was the fact that I felt like I was missing out on some of the sessions in order to do mundane things, like find lunch or check out, and so if I had the chance to do it again, I would schedule a buffer day in on each side of the trip. That way, I'd have had more time to get out and explore. Basically, once the conference started, I was locked in unless I wanted to skip.

That morning, I attended a session from DIY MFA about writing MG and YA. I started out initially as a YA author. I began writing as a young adult, and as a result, most of my characters are close to my age. I find it hard to stretch. While I had been pitching Momentum as New Adult, NA is very new (no pun intended) and has a murky, nebulous definition. I knew this session would be beneficial to me. One of the main takeaways of the lecture, aside from some fabulous ideas about working yourself out of plotting issues, was that writing MG and YA is super fun (which it is) and also that it is not lesser than other forms of literature. Yes, we want to write about teenagers, but teenagers are also very good at pointing out bullshit or when you're pandering to them. Writing like a teenager and about teenagers is hard. You have less room for error since your audience will dip out pretty quickly if they smell a rat.

I did skip a couple sessions to beat the aforementioned rush to check out at 11 and to have some time to wander the area surrounding the hotel for food. I was looking for a sandwich shop which ended up being across the street (I have a terrible sense of direction), but stumbled upon a street fair instead. I bought some costume jewelry and got a crepe!

It was supposed to be strawberry and Nutella, but whatever, banana works, too.

The closing keynote speaker was Kimberla Lawson Roby, creator of the Reverend Curtis Black series. She's about to publish her twenty-first novel! She began as a self-published author before selling 10,000 copies and being picked up by an agent. Her husband took out money from his 401K so they could print the first 3,000 copies of her debut novel, which she sold from her home.

She's an incredibly personable, intelligent, and funny woman. As Harlan Coben advised, "Don't be a douchebag." All these successful writers who had spoken to us, the unpublished authors scrambling our way to the top, had been the kindest, most engaging, and interesting people. They fielded our questions with grace and patience and made us laugh, almost moved us to tears.

That's how I'd felt the entire conference. I'd been surrounded by these veritable writing juggernauts, where I should have been intimidated and completely awestruck by their success, but instead, I found myself emphasizing with them, nodding my head as each of them spoke. For the first time, I was beginning to feel as if I belonged, as if I were a writer.

Once the conference ended, I had the hotel hold my bags since my flight wasn't until seven. I took the subway ALL BY MYSELF (thankyouverymuch) to Bri's lovely apartment, kicking myself that I hadn't remembered that she lived in NYC so I didn't have to waste money on a hotel. But whatever, I'm not bitter about it. There, she and her girlfriend Rebecca made me their classic breakfast sandwich, complete with a latte, watermelon, and fresh orange juice. Like, shut up. I should have stayed here and saved myself the cash. Anyway, check out the views:

Just look at that sautéed kale goodness. 

Broadway Street

These little tufts of green are Central Park. 

Panorama! 

Couldn't resist a mirror selfie. 

They had to run off, but the apartment was close to Central Park. I had to do ONE touristy thing, so I trekked over and took some pics/selfies. Does anyone else get that gut omg-do-I-really-look-like-that reaction whenever they hit the camera reverse button on their phone? Nope? Just me?

It's tourist season in the city! 

This made me think of a million movies. 

When I can't seem to take a good picture, I just ruin it by making a face. We all win. 

I finished Eleanor & Park while sitting on the runway at LaGuardia, somewhat sad that this journey had ended. However, I planned the trip strategically. I quit my job the day before, jetted off to NYC where I made some fabulous contacts to follow up with about Momentum, and now I was flying back to begin the journey to Wilmington for graduate school.

The fan art inside the cover of Eleanor & Park is just fantastic. 

It's a strange life, full of twists and turns, but as my dad has informed me, I tend to thrive on the chaos.

Bright Lights, Big City Pt. 2

Saturday morning, I was feeling much more refreshed and spent the majority of the early hours (I wake up with the sun) revising my pitch and getting my time down to ninety seconds.

Early morning excitement! This is what happens when I have too much caffeine. 

Ten minutes to nine, I rushed to the elevator so I'd have plenty of time to get to the Fifty Shades of Publishing session in the Vanderbilt room on the second floor. Because many attendees were staying at the hotel and going to and from sessions at the same time, finding an elevator with enough room to ride had become a Herculean task. As I raced to the elevator, I spotted a woman walking toward me, her lanyard bouncing off her chest. Dang it! I had forgotten mine. I dashed to my room and back to the elevator. The woman was kind enough to hold the elevator for me, and we shared a laugh at how disheveled I was.

She told me she was a literary agent, and in effort to drive the conversation away from pitching (because it would be kind of expected that I'd pitch her if she represented my genre), I started babbling about the obvious.

"Are you going to the Fifty Shades of Publishing session?" I said.

She showed me her badge. "Yes, I'm the speaker!"

And then I died a little inside. I should probably know or at least recognize the names of the people I'm about to watch speak.

Anyway, her session gave me a lot of insight into the world of publishing as it stands today. There used to only be traditional publishing (through an agent and the Big Five) and self publishing, but there are now so many different options. While there, I met a woman from Wise Ink, which is an indie publisher out of Minneapolis. There's this whole new wave of publishing coming around called partner publishing, which uses crowd funding companies like Pubslush to help raise the overhead costs of printing. Then the partner publisher helps the author build a grass roots effort to cultivate an audience and bring their book to the masses. It offers another opportunity and some hand holding for new writers in a way that's begun to disappear from traditional publishing. I didn't even realize that was possible until attending this session. Some food for thought.

Finally, my pitch rolled around. In years past, the Pitch Slam was one large three hour session where you formed lines in front of the agents you wanted to pitch and waited. I'd read several blog posts about the experience and made the rough estimate that I'd get to pitch 2-3 agents. I had my list of five to work with. This year, the session was split into three 1 hour blocks with 1/3 as many people. And boy, did it work!

Lines were much shorter than I anticipated. I pitched to six agents and received business cards from all SIX requesting material! I even had a request for the full manuscript. My strategy was pitch the #1 on my list and work my way down. I thought it would be like ripping a bandaid off, in that I would be  relieved and laid back after pitching my first agent.

No! Not at all. My anxiety just got worse. Halfway through, I was sweating and fanning myself with my schedule. As I accumulated more and more cards, I worried about finally getting a "no." With several minutes to go, I found myself standing in the center of this room frantically reading through my pamphlet to find agents looking for New Adult, thriller, or suspense. At six minutes to go, I decided to call it a day (a great one, at that--pitching was a total success) and head out.

Then I was floating on cloud nine. I had a stack of business cards bouncing around in a pocket of my shoulder bag. I had people, who were in no way related to me or friends of mine, who might actually want to read this thing I'd been working on for years. WHAT.  The rest of the afternoon blurred by until Harlan Coben's keynote speech.

In the grand ballroom waiting for Mr. Coben to arrive.

Now in all my years of reading, I've never read a Harlan Coben book! He's published twenty-six of them, by the way, and sold over sixty million copies worldwide. So he's kind of a big deal. He's also incredibly tall and super funny. He shared all the horrific covers his publisher came up with for his first few books, one of which included a bloody football.

They seemed to like bleeding sport equipment? IDK. 

He'd shown up a bit discombobulated, claiming he'd forgotten the subject of his speech, and had written some basic do's and don't's of writing to share with us while in his cab. After his speech, I tweeted him that it's nice to know you can be a bit of a mess, but still successful. He favorited my tweet! So I'm basically famous now.

After the keynote, there was a cocktail reception with free booze (huzzah!), and the air buzzed with an almost summer camp/college orientation vibe. Everyone was interested in hearing what genre you were pitching, how your pitching went, what your background was, and how you were working toward publishing. I met some cool writer friends, even one from my hometown of Raleigh, NC!

Oh hey, Grand Central! 

That night, I met my freshman college roommate and her girlfriend out for a fancy pants dinner in Tribeca. They met me in the lobby of the hotel and showed me the ins and outs of riding the subway in NYC. After dinner, we had drinks at a swanky dark bar. You know the type, the one where the bartenders are mixologists and wear suspenders. We have a lot of those in Asheville.

I don't know which building that is, but it looks great! 

Fun Facts:

1. My hotel was down the street from Grand Central station.

Ew, tourists. 

2. If your bartender has to open another bottle in the middle of pouring your glass of wine (and tells you that you would be smart to drink some of what you're already got while he's preoccupied), do it.
3. Fluke Crudo means raw fish. And it's delicious.

The restaurant where we had dinner: Telepan Local

4. Eye contact goes a long way when pitching an agent. Don't read from a card.
5. Everyone else is as nervous, if not more, about explaining their book to a stranger.

So that was my Saturday in NYC. Stay tuned to hear about the rest of the conference and my NYC adventures on Sunday!

Bright Lights, Big City Pt.1

(^^^borrowing a little Gary Clark, Jr. for some inspiration there)

Well, hey y'all! I'm back!

I know. It's been a long, long time, and you probably thought I fell off the face of the planet. In blogging terms, yes, yes I did. However, I now have some wonderful experiences to report back.

This past weekend, I flew up to NYC for the Writer's Digest Annual Conference. You see, back in April when I thought graduate school was not going to happen, my lovely roommate and best friend Sara convinced me that I needed to get out there and try to go to one of these conferences. After all, that's where Veronica Roth met her agent. A Cinderella story after all!

So I signed up for this madness called Pitch Slam at the conference. In a nutshell, this was speed dating with agents. I had three minutes of face-to-face time with an agent representing my genre of work, ninety seconds of which I could pitch my novel. Then I had to do it again and again and again. FOR AN HOUR.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

My new friend Shadow at my cousin's house. She didn't want me to leave.

Friday, I flew out of Charlotte early in the morning and arrived at the lovely Roosevelt Hotel in midtown Manhattan around 11, a feat which seemed to me, really awesome. 1.) I haven't been to NYC since 2001 and 2.) I've never taken a trip completely alone before, and that's what I was doing. While I was very excited for the conference, I was also as anxious as a cat. I hadn't slept the night before and spent all week trying to perfect my pitch while drinking too much wine.

Some light reading for the plane. Also, ELEANOR & PARK ruined me. Go read it. It's fantastic. Rainbow Rowell is amazing. The end. 

OMG, I'm official. 

I wasn't pitching until Saturday after lunch, so that meant I had plenty of time to psyche myself out about what was coming.

That afternoon, I was most excited to see Chuck Sambuchino speak during the Pitch Perfect Session about what to expect the next day. After listening to everyone's questions, I realized no one else had any clue what they were doing either. In fact, they seemed more confused that I was. Chuck schooled us on the elements of a solid pitch:

A log line: one concise sentence that describes your book. 

The details: your title, genre, and word count 

The Pitch: 

1. Introduce your main character. 

2. Tell us something interesting about him and tell us what he wants. 

3. Introduce the inciting incident (what's driving the story--why did you start where you did?)

4. What's the main conflict? (Basically repeating the log line.) 

5. What are the complications? 

6. Give an unclear wrap up. 

7. Make sure to include the stakes throughout: if the main character fails, what is at stake? 

And bam! There's your pitch. I was relieved that much of mine already had that. You can read what I pitched over on my Works page. It's the same thing.

The lobby of my amazing hotel. 

I'm so fancy. 

After the Pitch Perfect session, I stuck around for a panel on Ask the Editors and Ask the Agents. Some interesting notes here: Don't use a Q&A as a way to pitch your novel and/or badger the agents/editors as to why you haven't been published before. It's in poor form. There was one highlight though: the 70 year-old woman asking the senior editor of Harlequin how much erotic content was too much. If you have to ask, then it's probably too much. 

My swanky hotel room

By the time the keynote speaker began that night, I had a headache like a bulldozer and was so hungry I wanted to gnaw my arm off. I hadn't eaten most of the day because of said nerves. The fantastic Dani Shapiro gave a wonderful speech about facing the blank page and giving yourself permission to call yourself a writer, something I have most definitely struggled with. Now I basically want to read everything this woman has ever written. The combination of her beautiful words and my low blood sugar nearly had me in tears. I went up to my room, ordered a $35 cheeseburger, took a shower, and passed out for seven hours straight.

My pitch revision would have to come the next morning.

***********************

I've split this post into three parts which I'll be publishing throughout the week because it's simply too long.

Sarah Dessen and Malaprops

This past Thursday I was so excited to go to Malaprops in Asheville to see Sarah Dessen! She's a Chapel Hill YA author whom I've written about before, and I skipped her earlier tour dates for her new novel, The Moon and More, because I knew I would be in Asheville and wanted to check out the local bookstore. I've spent some time in Malaprops, and I really love how cozy it is. They do plenty of author events too. Maybe one day I'll be speaking there.

Going to author appearances always strikes this strange chord with me. It's like watching someone sing:  I feel nervous for them. I get all jumpy and sweaty and anxious before, like it's me whose going to be up there in front of everyone. It's even worse when I have to read my stuff. I've only ever read little snippets, and I break out into cold sweats before. That kind of stage fright is something I'll have to get over if I want to be able to read my work in public.

However, Ms. Dessen was absolutely delightful. She's the kind of person you want to talk to, and she immediately put the audience at ease. At some points, she had us laughing in stitches. I think it's important to point out that authors are real people too. I felt the same surreal sensation when I went to a Stephen King book signing: authors are just like people you'd run into at the supermarket. We give them a lot of credit for their work, but it's refreshing when we realize that they also have lives which don't involve writing, they have doubts and failures, ups and downs, just like the rest of us.

This signing was short, sweet, and more intimate than others I've been to. Sarah answered plenty of questions from the audience, did trivia about her books and gave away prizes, and even had you sit down with her when she was signing books. I had a great time and instead of finding myself dumbstruck and mute, I babbled to her about what an inspiration she was, that I was a fellow Tar Heel, and that I've been following the same path she was on (writing and working in a restaurant) before she was first published. I just wanted to sit down, have coffee with her, and pick her brain!

Okay, getting a little fangirly over here so I'm going to stop, but here are a couple of pictures from the signing with Ms. Dessen and yours truly:

from

Can you tell I'm a little excited?

I need to practice my autograph so it's short like this. 

-E

Gaining Perspective Through Setting

Recently, I spent a couple days in good old LA, which is my dad's tongue-in-cheek name for Lower Altavista, Virginia. He grew up in Altavista, a small little town about twenty minutes south of Lynchburg on highway 29. My grandmother still lives in the house my dad grew up in. They moved in the year Kennedy was shot.

I spent a lot of my childhood there discovering the same places my dad had frequented as a child. Often, when I write, those memories come back to me. I think finding something true to write about helps yield your work an authenticity that can be otherwise hard to find. I began a new Work In Progress (WIP) this summer, and the setting of the story is based on Altavista. I needed a small town, one that almost seems lost in time. You drive into town and step into a world where the world moves a little more slowly, where folks wave when you drive by, and everyone knows your last name.

My grandmother, Dodie, was a wonderful resource, acting as my official tour guide and Altavista's historian. I learned about Altavista's beginnings and how it has grown into the town it is today.

I hit a roadblock in my writing earlier, so I decided to take the trip to inspire myself with the setting. I was able to sit out on my grandmother's back porch and listen to the train whistle through town, a sound I will forever associate with Altavista. Without music or internet or anything to distract me, I watched the fireflies come out at dusk. I heard the soft crunching of something moving through the woods which begin at the end of the back yard and trail down into a ravine where the old football practice field is slowly being overgrown by vegetation. Sometimes as a writer, I feel you have to take the time to immerse yourself in your setting. You have to live it, breathe it, feel it.

A Watchful Summer (my working title) is going to be a personal novel, hopefully one where I can capture that feeling of magic and curiosity that so pervaded my childhood. In a way, this novel is for me to come full circle. When I was thirteen, I discovered a manual Royal typewriter in my grandmother's closet. We dusted it off, had the ink bands replaced, and I took it home with me where I was able for the first time to truly shut the door and write on my own time (this was before laptops - I didn't get a personal computer until I moved to college.) In fact, it's that typewriter that I found in Altavista that inspired the name of this blog.

Here's a couple of pictures to get you in the mood: 

The Avoca House (technically the back)

The front of the Avoca House  

Lovely Victorian staircase

Bedford Avenue 

 

Woods near the house  

Staunton River 

Railroad tracks 

Cemetery where my grandfather is buried. 

-E

Querying Makes Me An Anxious Bitch

So I won't sugarcoat it; I know I've been terrible these last few months about posting anything. The sad truth is that after I finish a big writing project, I don't even want to write my name, let alone a blog post once or twice a week.

But I'm beginning to feel more refreshed and reinvigorated with my writing so hopefully, you'll be seeing me here more often, writing like I'm supposed to.

Since finishing the revision for Momentum, I spent some time dillydallying about the next step in the publishing process: querying literary agents.

Back in the day, you used to be able to send your Great American Novel as an unsolicited manuscript to the major publishing houses in hopes of hitting pay-dirt. Alas, this is no longer the way. Manuscripts ended up in the "slush" pile and were forgotten.

Nowadays, literary agents act as the "gate keepers" to the publishing world. They decide what is publishable and what is not, deciding which writers they'd like to take on. Agents maintain relationships with publishers and editors; they know the market. They're also the ones who pitch your novel and negotiate your contract once you've been offered a book deal. Basically, they're the author's advocate.

Landing an agent is my next task on the road to being published. It's not as easy as emailing someone and claiming you've written the next bestseller. It's becoming harder and harder to get noticed by agents. They receive hundreds of query emails (your book's "cover letter," like something that would be written on the back cover) a week and often are picky about what genres they're looking for and which books they'd like to take on.

I spent a week or so researching agents I hope will be interested in my book. I wrote my query letter, got together my sample chapters, and sent out my proposals.

Basically now, it's best to forget about it. Agents take several weeks to respond to queries, and more often than not, they only respond if they're interested in requesting a full or partial. Otherwise, expect radio silence. I still have a mini panic attack every time I check my email, but I'm learning to move on and if I hear from someone, then I'll celebrate. It's best not to get my hopes and take whatever response I get as a small victory.

Now I'm focusing on a new project! That's right: I have started another manuscript.

I'm actually expanding a short story I wrote last semester for one of my classes. It was well-received but during my revision, I knew the story wasn't finished. I saw the characters and the plot on a bigger scale than the 9,000 words I had already written. After finishing Momentum, it became clear to me that the story needed more.

It's always a wonderful feeling when I get The Next Idea. It is an exhilarating, singing sensation where I know - this is a Book Idea, not a short story, but a Book.

So for the time being I'm working on this new project, but I'll definitely be keeping you posted on any responses I get from my querying efforts.

Thanks for sticking with me.

-E

Chapter 15 - Revision: Complete

Oh hey there. I'm back.

So I'm done with the revision to the WIP.

Kind of shell shocked about it right now.

At first I was like:

And then I did some:

 And then I was like: 

People were like, "How's the book?" and I was like:

Because I hoped it was like:

Everybody kept asking me about it and I was like:

Then I finished it and I was like:

But then reality set in:

And I realized now people will read it:

And I'm stressed about that because what if they're like:

So now I'm back to:

And done:

Okay, enough silliness. Here's some stats: 

First draft

 ~68,000 words

Started October 2011

Finished October 2012

13 chapters 

Working title: Thicker Than Water 

Second draft 

83,000 words (370 pages)

Started December 20th 2012

Finished March 5th 2013

14 chapters 

Working title: Momentum 

That's all I've got right now. Going to go wash my brain and hang it out to dry. 

-E