A Week with Writers – It’s how you pitch it!

Heaven help us all. I was with six hundred writers for five days, who were all telling their stories to anyone who would listen. What happened to the one-minute elevator speech?

At the beginning of the year, I knew it was going to be a year of change, but I didn’t realize I would be living in a new world of agents and publishers.

A month before, I was traveling from Denver with our daughter who had surgery and five open wounds. We stayed in the only available motel room in Pueblo due to the State Fair and Labor Day Weekend. We paid a high price for a room, which we were afraid to touch even the bed. Our window looked over the back alley.

This week I came from a five day writer’s conference in St. Louis, Missouri, where I slept between 300 count sheets, drank Starbucks coffee in the room, had a view of the arch and fountain, and dwelled among writers who all had a book to pitch.

Interestingly, the five-star and one-star rooms were the same price. I guess it’s all about supply and demand, the same with six hundred writers pitching their books to forty editors and agents.

My editor friend — who I call Inspector 12 — grilled me for weeks on how to act and what to say when I appeared before the agents, editors and publishers at the national writer’s conference. I practiced my one-minute elevator speak, only for her to say, “No. Use these key power words. Say it this way.”

Not all of the writers who came had the benefit of a person with the savvy of pitching an editor or a publisher. I explained my book as edgy. “No, No, No.” She came unglued. “Don’t use that word. It sounds trashy. They will think you’re writing a bedroom scene or they will be looking at a lawsuit. This is what you say. I’m writing a book for this generation. It’s relevant to right now.”

Everyone had to tell his or her whole story to anyone who would listen. My name tag told the writers I was a new attendee and a writer. I couldn’t do them any good, but for fifteen minutes, they cornered anyone who would listen, including myself.

One writer hemmed me in, and I backed out of the room, saying, “That’s nice. Yes, that’s nice, yes, you’ve got a great story.” At that point I knew how an agent must feel.

One editor had just learned of a death in her family, another editor was consoling her in the bathroom, both were crying. A writer came up and began pitching her book. The editor said to me, “Couldn’t she see my friend was crying?”

I responded with, “No, a writer sees a nametag that says, Editor. That’s all they see.”

My friend, who has written over seventy books, who was the keynote speaker this year, and who I’ve known for twenty years wanted to sit with me. We wanted to catch up with each other’s lives. A writer, who sat on the other side of her, was so impressed that she was actually sitting by Lauraine Snelling, she told her story from beginning to end.

I was very fortunate I was traveling with an editor friend who knew what was going on. I pitched two editors who said, “Send your manuscript,” and an agent who said, “I’m interested, revise these things, and send me your full manuscript and packet.”

What does that mean? I guess I got through the pickup line, the lunch date, and when they asked for my manuscript, that meant I was invited to dinner. I’ll keep you posted. I’ve got a lot of work to do, and I have a new book on my mind, which needs a concept and chapter summary to accompany “Under Heaven’s Rage.”

It’s a new world and an exciting challenge for me — a new language, a new goal, new powers-to-be, new demands and a very busy life. Why did it come now and not twenty years ago? My friends are all retired, they go out to lunch and coffee, and have time on their hands. I’m juggling deadlines, and I’m in another learning curve.

Final Brushstroke! When you re-invent yourself and start all over, maybe it’s the beginning of having something to say and to say it differently. It really doesn’t matter how old you are, your education or who you know. It’s what burns inside of you that needs to be told. Maybe, that’s why six hundred writers had to tell their stories.