This post is going to be about the writers' conference. I promise not to name drop or do anything annoying like that, but there will be a few names placed in this blog.
Alicia and I arrived in New Jersey on Friday at 7 pm-- there was a ton of airport issues but the important thing is we got there. The hotel was having a prom, which was weird because my prom was held there and the book I was pitching had their prom in that same hotel.
We woke up too early and got dress and awkwardly hung around the hotel room until we opted for coffee. By the time we got back, the breakfast was up and running. The keynote speaker was incredible. She described the pain and depression of writing -- which sounds like a total bummer but it was funny and touching and accurate. The best part about it, for me, was when she spoke about being a mom and a writer. That it's ok to do both. She puts the MothErhood. Me in motherhood. I rushed out and bought her book Dairy Queen.
The rest of the sessions were excellent, I went to one on Character, Conflict and Pacing which confirmed what I knew about writing. IT was run by a agent who knew his stuff. No name dropping but he runs his own agency and it gets 2000 queries a year.
The agent panel was excellent too. There were six agents there and they answered all sorts of questions, from how many queries do you get in a day to what is the project you're most excited about. They even answered my question of, "When is the paranormal teen romance trend going to end? Should I wait to query until its over, because I don't have a werewolf questioning his sexuality in my book." It got a big laugh. The answer was "it's not going anywhere, so you might as well query because there are agents who are sick of it too."
Lunch was amazing-- Mary Kole sat at my table. (We had assigned tables) I introduced myself to her and when the girls who were sitting next to her left. She patted the seat and told me to sit next to her. We talked about books and what sort of books she likes, and what makes a good conference for her. Very cool person. And I didn't throw up on her shoes, so that was a pretty big victory for me.
I had a one on one with an editor--- who edited The DUFF (its coming out in September I believe and it's going to be huge) She liked my 15 pages, thought it had good voice and the dialogue was funny. She had some concerns about the setting but in my mind that's a pretty easy quick fix.
Only two sessions were sort of lame, but that's not a big deal, everything else was amazing.
Would I go back? YES!
Should you go to a conference? YES
Is it worth the money? Depends on the conference, but I'm going to go with a yes on this one.
Anyone wanna share their conference experiences?
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