Sound Bites

The Algonkian Pitch and Shop Conference was held in NYC this past March, my first time attending a writers workshop. I met so many great, supportive people and now feel like I'm one step closer to making my writing career happen.

So just to recap...

Day 1: American Idol with 15 judges. I’m in the women’s fiction group, so we all go around the room, read our book summary, and one by one each person tells you if they like the story, what they like about it, and what they would reword in your pitch to make it sound better. Our group leader was Susan, who had her book published through this workshop, so she had some very helpful advice as well.

Day 2: We pitched to our first editor, and older woman named Jackie, as sort of a practice run, and she gave us feedback from an editor’s perspective.

Day 3: VICTORY! We had to pitch to 2 agents, one in the morning, one in the afternoon. The first editor I pitched to was total poker face, no smile, no feedback, nothing. So I leave thinking she hated it, then Susan calls me in after to give feedback and says “Congrats, she loves your story and requested your manuscript.” I almost fell off my chair. You should’ve seen this place, it was like American Idol, every time someone came out of the room and got a request everyone would scream and exchange hugs, it was really sweet how supportive everyone was. So I went out with the girls afterwards and had drinks and celebrated.

So now I have to have an editor edit my manuscript before I send it to Penguin, then they’ll take up to 6 months to let you know if they want to publish it. In the meantime I’ll be finished the rewrites to my 2nd book in hopes of never returning to the corporate world again.