Follow my Passion

Current Project:Doctor in Petticoats
Status: Edits


Well I'm rolling on the high only a writer can understand. I returned from the Emerald City RWA conference last night at 9pm.

I had a fun roommate who is a member of the Rose City RWA. I spent a good deal of time hanging out with groups of Rose City members. (If you hang around the right ones you are always talking to an agent or editor)

The first night Megan McKeever of Pocket Books sat at our dinner table. But it was so noisy, she looked tired, and I was across the table from her,so I didn't get a chance to ask her how she felt about westerns. (I later learned from another western writer she is favorable) And a blanket invitation to query was given. Keynote speaker was Christine Warren. She had some interesting takes on things.

A group of us huddled around Steven Axelrod as he drank a glass of wine in the foyer outside the ballroom between dinner and the agent/editor panel. I determined he isn't the agent for me and he doesn't like westerns in any form. He doesn't even really care about romance.

And later when Peter Senftleben of Kensington was waiting for the elevator I walked up to him, introduced myself, and asked him if he was interested in westerns. He said they weren't buying lots but I could send him a query. (I want to know who injected me with bravery over the weekend, but it was empowering to know I could walk up to editors and agents and talk to them. It has taken me 10 years in this business to get the guts.)

I attended a chat session with Elaine Spencer of the Knight Agency. Loved her. Saturday morning, I approached her when she was adding creamer to her coffee in the coffee and told her I thought she would be an excellent agent and liked the way she handled things, and was sorry to hear she wasn't keen on westerns. She told me she personally loved westerns but they were a hard sell. But to talk to her later. The only problem, I never saw her again when she was busy. But I'd swallowed the fear and talked to her!

Saturday morning I attended a chat with Tara Parsons HQN editor. She was fun and bubbly. She said they are looking for everything. But when I talked to her (again approaching her in a hallway- I astounded myself at my bravado this weekend!) And asked her about westerns she said they weren't looking that hard for historical but they would definitely look at contemporary cowboys. And Bethany- She said they are looking for Romance or coming of age teen stories for their teen line and they are also actively seeking nonfiction that women would like to read. For those of you not writing romance or fiction.

Then I attended the Series workshop by Pat White and Alexis Morgan. I'd pretty much heard it all before but it was a good reinforcement of some things. And I attended Karen Harbaugh's workshop on Story Themes since I always seem to have problems with that. And I'm still not sure I get it. I'm pretty dense when it comes to that stuff.

I attended my pitch session with Agent Alexandra Machinist of the Publishers Market Place. She is another savvy personable agent who I would love to work with, only as soon as I told her I wrote western she stopped me. "I don't handle those because they aren't marketable" Kind of a kick in the teeth, but she also went on to say, "If writing westerns is your passion, keep doing it because just like all genres they will rise again, then contact me".

I went to an editing workshop with Bob Dugoni a Suspense writer. It was a wonderful workshop about macro editing. The big picture editing. He was fun in that he was Italian, so he talked with his hands and was very animated and had some good one liners.

The Saturday speaker was Deborah Cooke/ Claire Delacroix. Her talk was inspiring and she again talked about writing what you are passionate about.

The book signing- I walked in and about fainted. They had ordered 50 of my books! Twenty five of the newest, 15 of Outlaw and 10 of the contemporary. All I could think was I have to sell lots, I can't buy them all back! I didn't want them going back to my publisher. The Gods were somewhat aligned right. I sold 20, bought 15 and left the rest. But wonderful, fast thinking Minnette, talked with the book store person (because she didn't want hers returned either) and scheduled us to go up to Seattle in November and do a book signing and hopefully we'll sell more books and they won't send them back!

Sunday morning I attended a workshop by Harlequin author Cindy Kirk on synopsis. She had the first couple of pages of synopsis and e-mails from the authors telling how their titles had been changed. It was an eye opening workshop on how to catch the editor's attention with a synopsis and a title.

Then it was time for my workshop. I had 8 people in attendance which is about right considering it was aimed at western writers and they are few and far between these days. The power point worked and I didn't get tongue tied. They even taped all the sessions but the little microphone and recorded were so unobtrusive I didn't even know I had it on.

Then we attended the luncheon and closing speaker Lisa Jackson. She was a hoot, and she pretty much said to write because you are passionate about it and not because you want to get on the NYT bestselling list.

And that ladies was my weekend conference!