The BEA Writer Conference - PITCH SLAM Part2

We'd had our meeting with Christine, it had gone very well, and we were both fired up. Alicia and I headed into the Pitch Slam practice. I wasn't sure how this was going to help. As you know, I'd already had the whole pitch ready to go, I knew it inside and out, if you woke me at 3am, I could have done it perfectly - in spanish - or even ancient greek.  

Then we got in. Superstar Janet Reid was sitting up in front of everyone, and the host invited a few people up to go pitch Janet on the spot. I sat back and watched carefully. Janet was incredible. She was funny, real funny, she even screamed a few times. But she helped each and every person in that audience. I realized the super pitch I'd worked out and could recite in a few dead languages was simply not going to work.

Thank god we had some time after the session before the pitch slam began. I needed it to work on my pitch. It didn't take long. I used Janet's advice and suddenly a tidal wave of energy poured over me. I was ready.

Disaster! All right, it wasn't a total disaster. The guy did invite me to upload some pages, but he told me straight out he didn't like the story, thought it sounded muddled, and that there was no human element to it - a sense that the main character would be relatable. Ouch! 

All I could hold on to was the fact I knew Faye had been so overwhelming positive about the story and characters, cocktailed with my successful pitch to Christine, who'd been so warm and responsive during our whole conversation. But I can't lie - that did sting.

I went down my list and found the next agent. She had no one at her table for the moment, so I ran over and fired on through the pitch - just to get this next one over with. She handed me a card and told me to send her 30 pages. All right, all right - I can handle that. Nice! Back in business!  

The rest of the day was a blur. I met lots of people all getting ready to pitch their stories and it just felt great. People really seemed to be having a wonderful time and that made me so happy. I love it when things are going well for everyone, you know? Just puts a smile on my face. 

Alicia and I met up again at one point, I think it was on line to pitch the incredible, savvy, super-agent Tina Wexler from ICM. I was in the middle of talking to Alicia about Wicked (she was going to see it with her husband that evening) when I had to go up to pitch Tina. Tina was cracking up - she'd seen me talking to a few people I guess and wondered how I met so many people so quickly. The fact is, I really love these settings and I really love meeting people and learning their stories. That's why I'm a writer, I love stories! I had a blast pitching Tina. Seriously, folks, if you can't have fun telling Tina your story, you simply aren't qualified for life. She's awesome! She takes notes on what you're saying, she asks questions, she makes you feel completely at ease, and even jokes around!

The day was wrapping up and I'd pitched 8 agents. All 8 had requested material, even the devil spawn agent, who disliked my story but for some odd reason thought I should send him pages anyway. Go figure.  The guy was actually very nice and I'm only calling him the devil's spawn, because for the slightest moment after my pitch to him, I stumbled into my swelling black hole of insecurities and very nearly gave up my quest to conquer BEA.  Dude - seriously, you're ok with me!

And that was it. I had an incredible time. I met a new friend, someone I can sense will be in my life for a long time to come. And I walked away with 8 requests for my work. What more could I possibly want?

I'll tell you.

I wanted to take a nice slow stroll home by the river. When we got there that day, it was nasty out - grey, cloudy, and spitting rain. At some point during the day, the sky had opened up into a golden wonder with zero clouds and sunlight glimmering off the water. It was a living metaphor for the day.

On my lovely stroll home by the water, I called my wife to tell her the news and then my other biggest supporter - mom.  Both were thrilled.  There was still much work ahead and both reminded me. But I'd taken a huge step forward, and they let me enjoy the moment.  

3 days later, I got my first rejection.         

The BEA Writer Conference - PITCH SLAM! Part1

I had no idea what to expect. Film festivals - I know what I'm getting into. This was entirely new to me, scary, thrilling, whatever. I walked down to the Javits Center (I don't live too far away - rock on Home Court Advantage!) I was of course rehearsing my ill-fated pitch (not knowing just then it would be ill-fated or I probably would have been thinking about something else entirely - like why that car seems to be following me, creeping up very slowly behind me, and blasting its horn every so often in a frat house attempt to get me to jump.)

When I arrived, I got my badge and located the room for the key-note speaker to speak her key-notes. Everyone seemed excited about the day ahead. It was WAYYYYYY early. I don't much like getting up at 7:30, let alone being somewhere at 7:30. My natural body clock says go sleepy at 1am and wake whenever you damn well feel like it. Jaden decided early on I should get up at 7:30 and tend to his needs. I'm willing to give him that until he turns 12 and wants to start sleeping til noon. I will then go into his room at 7:30 with a foghorn and blast away.

Karin Slaughter rocked the key-note. Very funny and offered some insight to her LONG journey to becoming a published author. Very quickly after her speech, we had to decide which of the breakout sessions we wanted to go to. Yikes! Not ready to make a decision/commitment just yet. Need more espresso. I decided to use my quantum physics expertise and open up a few parallel universes so I could attend the different sessions simultaneously. This had worked exceptionally well in the past. Turns out, portals refuse to open at 7:30 in the morning, and I had to laugh. Who would have thought quantum physics was on the same body clock as me?

I went to the session called Get Known Before the Book Deal: A Platform Primer by Christina Katz.  Christina had been sitting directly behind me for the key-note and had a great laugh and smile. I love great laughs and smiles as they are usually home to a real warm person. She knew her stuff! After I left, I realized I have a heck of a lot of work ahead of me. One thing I needed to do was write a blog. Someday, I'll get to it, I guess.

The next session I was going to go to was Self Promotion and Social Networking. I've always been a shameless self-promoter. This seemed right up my ally. Thing was, in the next room was an Ask the Agents panel. And I started thinking, I should probably see what that's about. Aren't I here mainly for the Pitch Slam? And aren't half of the participants at Pitch Slam going to be agents? Ah, right.

In I went.  I met a charming dude by the door and he thought I would get on well with his wife. This post could take an abrupt turn here, but rest assured, he just thought that since she was a writer and I was a writer and we both wrote for children, and I seemed kind of cool and she was kind of cool - that sort of thing - we should hang a bit and learn about this whole thing together.  So he introduced us.  And we became friends.  She has an amazing YA story - the concept just blew me away.  Go read her blog - http://mindifiwrite.blogspot.com          

So there we were together listening to all these agents speak about their wants and needs. It was here that I first listened to, met, and fell madly in love with Janet Reid - rockstar agent, blogger, lover of fine scotch, and filled with the kind of dripping, salacious badassness that usually comes only from the mind of Quentin Tarantino. Go read her blog - http://jetreidliterary2.blogspot.com

Alicia (the dude's wife!) and I sat there when the session was over and continued speaking about what we'd learned about the industry thus far, what we wanted to do with our lives, and how we were going to get there.  She'd sent out a bunch of queries for her novel and had some really great feedback. In fact, she had actually already had requests for her MS from a handful of agents she was going to meet there! One was the lovely Christine Witthohn, from Book Cents Literary Agency, who'd actually called her after reading the full manuscript! Christine had some editorial advice not terribly unlike Faye had for me. Alicia had since resubmitted and was waiting to hear from her.  Sound familiar? (EDIT - Alicia let me know I had that completely wrong.  This was no surprise to me as my wife is constantly telling me I do stuff wrong.  Apparently, Christine called her after reading Alicia's query and told her that she needed to cut the word count down.  So anyway - now back to the original post)

We realized there was an actual lunch for us, so we sprinted across the Javits Center looking for it.  After a few near hits, we finally found the room and missed out on all the goodies.  Oh well.  

Fate has always been good to me. Timing has as well. This time, it was when my bladder told me it was time to go to the bathroom. I left the lunch room and asked the first person I saw where the bathroom might be located. This person happened to be Christine Witthohn. Synchronicity factor of Warp 10! I introduced myself and told her I was friends with Alicia Walker and she got a huge, giddy smile on her face. I was hoping that meant she liked Alicia's story. Otherwise, that smile would have just been creepy. Turns out I was correct in my assumption.

When lunch was over, I saw Christine was still outside the room speaking with a friend and I told Alicia she should go up and introduce herself. They'd never met in person. As we walked up, Christine began heading back to where the sessions were being held. For such a tiny thing, she sure could move! We kicked it into high gear and sped off after her. Finally we caught up and had a fabulous conversation where Christine invited me to pitch my story on the spot to her. I did. She thought it sounded like a lot of fun and gave me her card. She told me to send the full MS!  

I was on my way.  Hadn't even got to the pitch slam yet and already had an agent request the darn thing.  I was on fire! I was the rockstar of the conference! 

My next pitch left me wanting to cry in the corner and reconsider whether this was the career for me.