What a Ride!

I'm back from Dallas and, wow, what a ride! I had the most incredible time. I also didn't sleep much, which accounts for why I'm still a wreck today.

I got two requests from my pitches, which was nice, though I have to say the best thing about pitching was discovering it's not nearly as intimidating to do when the person sitting there is someone who's sole purpose for being there is to listen to your pitch. It was, oddly, way harder to do it in a hotel room for the Mavens and Courtney, India, Sara, and Tessa (with whom we had a "pitch giggle-fest" on Friday night).

The most useful workshop I attended was presented by Leah Hultenshmidt of Dorchester and an author, whose name I have shamefully forgotten. It was about how you can use title and premise to hook an agent, editor, or reader before they've even read a page. I've always known I have a title problem with A Scandalous Liaison/Living in Sin/Whatever the Heck It's Called and I know I need to fix that before I start actively cold-querying it. To that end, I'll be running a contest later in the week asking for title suggestions. Whoever's suggestion I use (or build upon) will receive an autographed copy of Barbara Pierce's Wicked Under the Covers. But before I can start, I think I need to post you all a short synopsis/hook, because it's awfully hard to come up with the right name for a book you haven't read and know nothing about. (I came up with a slew of great book titles immediately after leaving the session. Too bad I couldn't simultaneously come up with the stories to go along with them!)

For more about my fun, fun times at the conference, hop on over to the Manuscript Mavens blog, where I have a much longer (though by no means complete) post up (today's not usually mine, but Erica and I swapped).

See you Wednesday!