Hanging out in Portland and the Willamette Writer's Conference
It's Friday evening. I just got back to my room after the first day at the 41st annual Willamette Writers Conference Click here
I am learning to improve my wordcraft and there's no better place for me to get inspired than a well-run writer's conference. This is a good one. By the end of Sunday there will have been over 90 one and a half hour long presentations covering topics from "The BS in Back Story" to "Going from a Good Idea to a Sold Idea."
I have never done an honest to goodness pitch to a literary agent before. But this morning I joined a small group of 5 others and pitched my creative non fiction idea to Melissa Flashman, a literary agent for the Trident Media Group. She liked it and asked me--and everyone else in the group--to send her either a completed story for the fiction writers--and a proposal from me. I later signed up to practice my pitch to a staff volunteer. She also had some good recommendations. Tomorrow I do an actual one on one pitch to Gordon Warnock. a literary agent from the Andrea Hurst Literary Management group.
Then I sat in on a presentation on "The eMedia Publishing Revolution" by Julie Fast. Learned a lot about the fast-changing world of electronic publishing.
After lunch I sat in on "Beginnings, Endings and Turning Points" by Jessica Morrell, the author of 7 or 8 writing books such as, "Thanks, But This Isn't for Us;" "Master The Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing;" and "Writing Out the Storm." After that session I had decided that I wanted to write my story as a novel. My mind is a very changeable thing.
I asked a couple of other writers who I was standing in line with to practice their pitches into my recorder. The first writer you're going to hear from is Colleen Sohn. Colleen writes on the website www.underaredroof.com. />
Here's Collen's pitch:
If you're thinking about writing a story you'll need to learn how to write it and how to pitch it to an agent. The other thing I learned here is that the days of publishers footing the bill for promotion are gone unless you're a big name writer. Today new authors are expected to get full tilt into promoting their books through social networking sites, and websites.
More to learn tomorrow.
Are there any other writers out there??
I am learning to improve my wordcraft and there's no better place for me to get inspired than a well-run writer's conference. This is a good one. By the end of Sunday there will have been over 90 one and a half hour long presentations covering topics from "The BS in Back Story" to "Going from a Good Idea to a Sold Idea."
I have never done an honest to goodness pitch to a literary agent before. But this morning I joined a small group of 5 others and pitched my creative non fiction idea to Melissa Flashman, a literary agent for the Trident Media Group. She liked it and asked me--and everyone else in the group--to send her either a completed story for the fiction writers--and a proposal from me. I later signed up to practice my pitch to a staff volunteer. She also had some good recommendations. Tomorrow I do an actual one on one pitch to Gordon Warnock. a literary agent from the Andrea Hurst Literary Management group.
Then I sat in on a presentation on "The eMedia Publishing Revolution" by Julie Fast. Learned a lot about the fast-changing world of electronic publishing.
After lunch I sat in on "Beginnings, Endings and Turning Points" by Jessica Morrell, the author of 7 or 8 writing books such as, "Thanks, But This Isn't for Us;" "Master The Subtle Elements of Fiction Writing;" and "Writing Out the Storm." After that session I had decided that I wanted to write my story as a novel. My mind is a very changeable thing.
I asked a couple of other writers who I was standing in line with to practice their pitches into my recorder. The first writer you're going to hear from is Colleen Sohn. Colleen writes on the website www.underaredroof.com.
Here's Collen's pitch:
Download | Duration: 00:01:10
If you're thinking about writing a story you'll need to learn how to write it and how to pitch it to an agent. The other thing I learned here is that the days of publishers footing the bill for promotion are gone unless you're a big name writer. Today new authors are expected to get full tilt into promoting their books through social networking sites, and websites.
More to learn tomorrow.
Are there any other writers out there??
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