writing conference, day 1

highlights 

• kinda decent swag bag, including the new P&Ws/the writer magazine issues, cookies, free jodi's popcorn, and 2 tickets to the norfolk botanical garden and the chrysler museum of art.
• meeting a fan from my reading last night
• getting a tasty veggie wrap
• meeting jill mccorkle *
• meeting katherine sands**
• catching up with former barnes and nobles employees

not-so-highlights

• false fire alarms that made judi mccoy pretty angry
• pitch session not quite going as i planned***

*jill mccorkle is one of those people you just want to hang around with on a front porch swing on a summer day sipping ice tea and bourbon. calm, graceful, modest. it was a pleasure stalking her down and making her sign my book. i told her that i really loved her new book (okay i just read halfway through at that point but it's really amazing) and that i've also been reading her colleague john kessel's short stories "the baum plan for independence." i was looking forward to applying to ncstate for fall 2011, where they are both faculty. yes of course it's brown nosing and i look like a fan girl. but she looked at my name tag and said she'd keep a look out for my name. yessssssssss.

**katherine sands is one of these people who know their shit and got it straight. she seems to be one of those relentlessly accountable people with confidence and swagger and is just generally cool as hell.  because i just saw this movie, i'll compare her to the character of chris chambers from the movie "stand by me": 

what's your pitch, sucka?

her pitch session was well-informed and entertaining. she was direct and honest and was committed to giving each member the information he or she needed to make a successful book pitch. i respect that. 

*** now, sadly,  i  don't feel like this was my shining moment. this is not katherine's fault in any way, but i definitely felt like i missed the pitch. i know my idea has all of the components she talked about in her panel, but being in front if her and explaining it all...well, it just didn't gel. she did invite me to send her my query, so i plan doing that as i feel comfortable with it. which will be veeeeeerrrry soon. 

fiction readings for amateur writers...

can be a terrifying experience. depending on size of the crowd, the location/environment, and the piece that the writer has to read, this can be brilliant success or utter failure.

last night, i read a short story that i recently wrote that has been swirling around in my head for some time. before this, knowing I had a 7-minute reading to perform, I scourged all my writing samples to find a piece worthy of reading in front of my teachers, fellow writers, loved ones and varying strangers. I found nothing that i was comfortable reading for 7 minutes in front of anybody, not even my dog:

tough crowd

and so the unworkshopped, unreviewed short story made it to the stage. i ran it by a couple of my most trusted beta readers and ran a spell check. that was about it. 

i have to say it was more well-received that i would have thought. my current instructor seemed nervous because i was reading a piece that had not been worked in her class. afterwards, she gave me her usual, "it's brilliant!" face. which makes me happy. i talked with a former instructor, who told me good things. i even met a woman today at the hampton roads writers conference who recognized me from the reading and told me she really enjoyed my story. overall, that's a score. lauren: level up!