Appointments

So, I’ve signed up for an editor and an agent appointment at RWA nationals this summer.

First, I have to complain about RWA’s website. I couldn’t even see the main page for the first two or three attempts yesterday morning. Once I was deemed privileged enough to actually view their home page, I could not log in. Re-tried for about 20 minutes straight, before the 8am start time. Seriously, folks, talk to your ISP and your web design staff. Surely someone can help you out. Add a few servers for the day. Make sure bandwidth is available. Its not like you didn’t know that the instant sign up opened, that half the RWA membership would be logging in. Plan for it.

Ok, ‘nuff said about that

The editor appointment is someone who looks for contemporary single titles, and I will probably try to pitch both the contemp and the sci fi to the agent. Or that might completely change when I walk in the room. Who knows.

So, now I have some work to do. I have half of a new first chapter for my contemporary single title. I plan to write the second half and revise the first half this week. Then, run that by one of my crit groups. I have a few ideas for revisions throughout the rest of the book. That will happen as we get into the summer.

Next week, back to my sci fi. I made lots of progress last week--wrote about 5000 words over 2 days. At this pace, I won’t quite have it finished and revised before nationals, but close. At least word-complete.

And I got feedback from the one contest I’d entered the sci fi in. It didn’t final, but for once, all of the scores were within the same ballpark of each other (apparently people either love or hate the rest of what I write). I need to spend a little time reading through the comments, and making updates. Some of the feedback looks quite helpful. One of the comments was pretty encouraging—the judge said that she expected the piece to begin finaling in contests soon. That would be cool. Of course, I have to revise it and actually enter more contests for that prediction to have a chance...

Pitching

There's been lots of talk lately about pitching at RWA national. Whether to pitch, To whom to pitch, How to Pitch. And for me, what to pitch. I've been going on the assumption these past couple of months that I'll be pitching my sci fi. And perhaps I should.

But then, someone said at our crit group meeting the other night, "You have a finished manuscript." Oh yeah. I do. But I can't pitch *that*, can I? I queried it to a dozen or so agents, and it didn't get lost in all of their spam filters because I got *some* responses (mostly negative). Even one (later declined) request for a partial. But my contest scores on the beginning were less than encouraging. So no one will want it, right?

Well, here goes attempt #2. No, #3 at the intro. I started with a blank slate. A File->New, if you will. 3000 words later, I'm about half way through the action. I've tweaked the plotline a little--same basic setup, same meet between the H/H, but its a bit cleaner. I've got better characterization, better introspection, better dialogue, better voice. Saleable? Who knows. But definitely better.

And, I've got a chance to read it at our chapter's crit group--with a handful of published authors and several contest winners, and a minimum of at least 8 to 10 people giving feedback. Maybe I will pitch this thing after all.

And my sci fi.