Part of me knows I should’ve written this sooner after having been to WDC, but the other part of me was really busy. :p
So I headed up the NYC on Thursday the 17th after having been at Otakon in DC the past weekend and staying with my in-laws in Baltimore for the week. My train was an hour later, after I got there over an hour early, worrying that I would miss the train. So that was sort of a pain. Then, once I got on the train I had a rude exchange with one of the conductors because I was having trouble finding a seat. It took me a moment to realize that people put their stuff in the second seat in an attempt to keep anyone else from sitting next to them. So then I asked someone to please move their stuff and I achieved a seat.
I got off in Penn Station, grabbed a pretzel (because I was starving) and used Google Maps to get me on the right Subway and to the hotel. I got my WDC badge with no delay and got my room before finding my roommate in the ‘intro’ session.
We got some food and then spent the rest of the evening working on our pitches for the Pitch Slam. We spent a few hours writing and rewriting until we finally decided to call it a night and hope we would get some good advice in the Pitch Perfect session the next morning.
The Pitch Perfect session went well and gave me some good ideas for my pitch. Then I launched into a full day of panels, including Steven James’ Story Trumps Structure which was fun and full of great information and Mastering Plot Twists by Jane K. Cleland, which I was a little wary about at the start because I thought it would be too formulaic, but ended up being very helpful. That night was a great keynote from Lisa Scottoline who was boisterous and fun and made me feel super excited about the rest of the conference.
Friday night was spent at dinner with the DIY MFA crowd and then working on our pitches again. At one point I realized my writing style is just nowhere near my conversational voice and I was running into an issue where everything I wrote sounded too formal. So I wrote out the opening bit to my pitch (my name, book’s title, word count, and elevator pitch), and then I just created some bullet point-like notes in case I got really stuck and decided I was going to wing it.
Luckily I was in the first pitch slam session so I didn’t have all day to worry about it. It ended up going wonderfully and I came away with four requests for submissions from the agents I was most excited about. If you’d like to know more detail about what happened and what I learned during the pitch slam, sign up for my newsletter which will be going out next weekend.
Then it was back to panels. Another Stephen James lecture on Troubleshooting your Novel and one by Crystal King on Taking Control of your Book’s Promotion Plan which had an amazing list of things you can do to promote your book. I love lists.
Then the most amazing thing happened. I got to be a part of a DIY MFA podcast along with the other DIY MFAers who were at the conference. I was super nervous and I have no idea how I’ll end up sounding on the finished product, but it was tons of fun doing it with everyone. That podcast will be available sometime in the next month or so (I don’t know exactly). I’ll be sure to post a lot about it so you won’t miss out.
And Sunday were two nice lectures, one on Voices in my Head by Heather Webb which gave me some good ideas on trying to identify my own writing voice. And you may have noticed the ‘subtle’ link to sign up for my newsletter. I went to a lecture on Newsletter Marketing put on by Jane Friedman, so I got some amazing ideas for both promotion and putting out a newsletter that will be worth the space in your inbox.
After that I checked out the hotel and headed to the subway, only to find out the Subway’s E line that I had taken here from Penn Station was diverted for the weekend, so I had to get as close as I could and then walk the rest of the way. At least I had my rolly luggage so it wasn’t so bad. The train was right on time, I got on and found a seat immediately and read ‘The Ocean at the End of the Lane’ by Neil Gaimen, finishing just before I arrived in Baltimore, where I met with my hubby and we drove home from there.
