Three Years All For Nothing

Yesterday I discovered that I've been listening to the same music for the last three years for no reason whatsoever.

I'm sure this makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, so let me explain. About four years ago my entire CD collection was stolen by some cheeky monkey out of the front seat of my car while I was getting some stuff out of the boot. To this day that still makes me laugh since I would say a stash of Christian music would have been the absolute last thing that person was hoping for.

It was a bit of a pain but, having been an early adaptor to the cutting edge technology known as the i-Pod, I still had most of my music. And so on I semi-merrily continued.

Then two years ago disaster struck. My iTunes lived on my work laptop. I would like to say I not only did this with the full knowledge of my IT team, but that one of the IT support guys actually loaded it onto my laptop for me. Then, someone who obviously had far too much time on their hands to dream up nasty things to do to poor hard working public servants, issued an edict than all non work related programmes were to be removed pronto.

I was named an offender of the edict and so duly two IT guys showed up to remove my iTunes (I'm really not sure what the second one was for - to hold me down if I tried to stop them??) and it was verily dumped into cyberspace.

And therein lay the problem. You see I don't own a pc, I'm a Mac girl baby, and someone who I trusted had knowledgeable told me that there was some major difference between Mac compatible i-Pods and PC compatible i-Pods and that the moment I plugged my i-Pod into my Mac, my entire library would be wiped, gone, finito, poof away to join i-Tunes in cyber space.

Having had my cds swiped by i-Pod was the only device remaining that housed my music collection. And it wasn't just any collection. It housed classics such as SClub7, the Spice Girls, the Backstreet Boys and numerous other pop bands that, while I might mock them in public, actually have music that is quite good to run to.

And so, for the last two years, I have been held hostage by an i-Pod trapped in 2006. The same 467 songs and 12 sermons for almost 1000 days.

Then last week I broke. I couldn't do this anymore. I no longer cared if I didn't hear one of those songs for as long as I lived. In fact wiping the thing would be a blessed relief from the torture of having to hear the opening bars of S Club Party for the 600th time.

Yes there were a few songs that I could still tolerate, that I wasn't sure if I would be able to get again, but on the whole, enough was enough.

So on Tuesday night, I finally did it. I plugged my i-Pod into my Mac and waited for the message telling me that, for my unfaithfulness to the Apple, my music had to go.

Want to know what happened? NOTHING. Well not nothing, but after a couple of moments thinking, up my i-Pod popped with all its contents intact, up popped my Mac Library with all its contents intact. Just sitting there, great friends, all harmonious in one happy screen. Not only that, but I can move things from my Mac library to my i-Pod and nothing happens.

N O T H I N G

I have been torturing myself with the same songs over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over andover and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over andover and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over andover and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over andover and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over andover and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over andover and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over andover and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over andover and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over andover and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over andover and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over andover and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over andover and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over andover and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over for the last almost three years for absolutely no reason.

I almost cried.

And I can only say to the person who gave me that assured piece of i-Pod advice - you a REALLY lucky I can't for the life of me remember who you are!

Temporarily Relocated :)

Today I Am Blogging Over At http://www.internationalchristianfictionwriters.blogspot.com/ so jump on over and say hi :)

Skip This One If You're Already Bored Senseless By My Wedding :)

As I write this, I’m sitting here staring at four cases of wine that have just been delivered for our wedding. Yes, yes, I know it’s still two months ago but when it comes to alcohol acquisition Josh and I are taking a somewhat ad hoc approach. Also know as the see-something-we-like-on-special-and-buy-6-bottles option.

We figure this will hopefully be a lot more painless than getting a large bill in January when we’re already broke. So the great news is there’ll be lots to choose from. The not so great? If you happen to be at our wedding and find something you really really like - good luck getting any more!

Anyway, while I’m sure you’re all sick and tired of my wedding, so am I. And so I am going to bore you some more with “Kara’s Wedding Tips”

1) RSVP early. Yes E A R L Y. As in before the date listed on the card. If you know your definite answer, please just tell us. Especially if you’re a no!
2) Which leads me to the second, if you’ve said yes, you can say no but not like the day before unless someone is ill with the plague or something terrible like that). But if you’ve declined, you can’t turn around later and accept, no you can’t! Why? Because either (a) someone else has already been invited in your place or (b) the invite list was oversubscribed to begin with and they were secretly counting on your no.
3) Don’t ask the bride if she’s planning to go on a wedding diet. Especially not while eyeing her up and down. For all you know she’s been slaving away for the last month and you’ve just told her that all that denial of chocolate and hours on the treadmill are all for nought.
4) Keep your opinions to yourself when it comes to wedding dresses. Telling her all about how you went to a wedding last weekend and the bride wore this hideous meringue froo froo dress with puffed sleeves could have you lined up for a world of pain when she marches down the aisle in its replica (don’t worry I’m not – but it has happened!)
5) There’s a BIG difference between food allergies and preferences. Yes, I want to know if simply being in the same room as a nut is going to put you ten steps closer to the great hereafter. Unless you are my mother or my fiancé, I really really really really don’t care if you don’t like tomatoes in your salad, or have strong opinions about mixing fruit with meat or chocolate versus vanilla. It’s a buffet. Find something.
6) If I don’t tell you where I’m going on my honeymoon, it’s because I’m afraid you might show up.
7) I love you, I thank you for travelling such a long way for our wedding. But I just can’t organise anyone else’s New Zealand holiday. At the moment I can barely work out how to catch the bus to my new place. Yes I realise I work in tourism. I suggest www.newzealand.com
8) If another guest happens to be your mortal enemy. Suck it up. I’m not going to seat you beside them and there will be 150 other people there. Put on your big girl panties and get over it. (I say this because guys don’t ten to have mortal enemies, they have a fight, and life is all good again).

Anyone else got anything they think I should add?

Where For Art Thou Hairdryer?

This morning it took me twenty minutes to try and find my hairdryer. And that was after it took me 15 minutes to find some underwear.

I hate moving at the best of times. Not even when buff burly guys show up and pack everything and move everything for me. Though I would like it a whole lot better if that was what happened this weekend, along with someone to unpack the boxes at the other end.

Alas, this move was total chaos, to say the least. Aka the kind where you wake up on Sunday morning, look around you and think "I'm moving today and I have not packed a thing" and promply start running around your apartment in circles throwing things in boxes,w ith no rhyme or reason.

Which is why this morning I wandered around my new house able to find plenty of things that I either didn't want, should have thrown out or couldn't even remember owning, but nothing of any practical use. And yes, my hairdryer is still MIA, and yes, I'm a tad grumpy because of the very bad hair day that resulted.

The house, however, is gorgeous and I love every square inch of it. Hopefully I'll soon get around to taking some photos so you can all covet my new palace :)

On the not so great front, it's further away, and so tonight I am about to embark on a brand new adventure entitled "commuting on Wellington public transport". Wish me luck!

Also this week I'll be blogging about engagement party #2 on Saturday night which was about as different from the first as you could get, but still heaps of fun. And my friend Elizabeth made the most AMAZING cake in the world.

Finally, for today, great news - a bunch of us writing internationally have banded together to start our own blog. Starting from tomorrow, you can find a group of us blogging at www.internationalchristianfictionwriters.blogspot.com . It's a great bunch of people, lots of them are published, a few of us (me included) are lucky enough to be included on their glorious coat tails in the hopes that maybe, one day, we'll get to join their ranks. And if not, hey we get to have fun with some great and very illustrious company :)

So come say hi, we're kicking off with a book giveaway, and all going well it will just be the first of many many more to come.

You Are Cordially Invited...

When we started on this whole wedding planning thing I was warned about the invite list. This was usually by someone who got married in the last twelve months and their first-up “have fun with the invitation list” was accompanied by semi-hysterical laughter.

Foolishly, I wasn’t too worried. Getting married in New Zealand, and having my beloved blithely inform me that there was no way than any more than 30 people would come from Australia, let me 98% certain that I wouldn’t have to face pretty much any of the invitation list dramas that many of my friends had.

I’d already checked out my parents and they only wanted to invite a very reasonable 10 family friends, not even close to the 70 another friend’s parent’s insisted on – the majority of whom she had never met. I don’t have a large extended family and there was no expectation of inviting second cousins, or those people who you think you’re related to but you just can’t quite remember how.

Many of my high school friends had gotten married and, as I hadn’t been invited to their receptions, I knew I wasn’t expected to invite them to mine if numbers got tight. Ditto with church friends.

So I admit, I was somewhat smug that we would easily cruise in on our 115-125 guest list. No dramas. No fuss. In fact quite the reverse – I imagined I was going to spend far more time sad about the people who couldn’t be there, than stressing about the numbers of those who could.

Ha! And the universe laughed!

What was my fatal flaw in my reasoning blog world?

Yes, of course, it was the boy.

The adorable, earnest and obviously very unassuming guy who plainly had no idea how many of his friends and family either (a) loved him to distraction and wouldn’t miss his wedding for the world or (b) really really wanted an excuse to have a holiday in New Zealand and finally had one.

The people who Josh had sworn red, black and blue would sooner allow leeches to eat their extremities than get on a plane? Yup they’re all coming. The ones who he swore there was no way they’d be able to afford to come? Yup, must have secretly robbed a bank or won lotto or something, because they’re all accepting “with delight”.

At last time I check the “absolutely definitely no more than 30 from Australia” was 65. And all up, while the maximum our reception can seat 138 people, we have 160 invites out in the big wide world and NO ONE HAS DECLINED.

Cue hysterical laughter. Don’t get me wrong, I am absolutely thrilled for Josh that so many people are coming and fortunately for him, I am not a bridezilla, otherwise I would be having some kind of terminal meltdown right now. What on earth are we going to do if more than 138 accept? I have no idea. I figure we’ll work it out when that happens. Though I am beginning to develop a bit of a spastic twitch every time I open another RSVP and see “We are thrilled to accept…”

Even with all that, do you want to know what’s really lead us to the pinnacle of teetering on the brink of wedding chaos? The people who have invited themselves. I’d heard rumours of this phenomenon and, as with most other things wedding related, been entirely unsympathetic. As far as I was concerned if someone assumes they’re invited and you weren’t planning on inviting them, you just need to suck it up and tell them so.

I mean, be nice about it, don’t slap them down. But surely something along the lines of “Of course you’re welcome at our wedding, but unfortunately due to the size of the reception venue/combined size of our families/budget constraints/etc etc we haven’t been able to invite you to the reception.”

But people are sneaky! And I don’t mean that in a manipulative way. I just mean that a number of people have just assumed that they were going to be invited and, rather than checking first, have just gone ahead and booked flights and accommodation and then dropped the “Oh by the way we’re flying into Wellington on X for your wedding” bomb!

And I’m not talking about close friends and family who would be rightly offended if they weren’t invited. I’m talking about people so far down the list that if we’d been having a wedding with 600 people, they would have been invites #478-490! I wish I could tell you all the wonderful and varied ways that they’ve informed us they’re coming to our wedding but, on the off chance that someone who reads this knows someone and says “guess what I read in Kara’s blog the other day” and they realise I was talking about them I’m going to resist.

But if we end up with more than 138 people they’ll know who they are. They’ll be the guests in the roped off “standing room only’ zone :)

So since I can’t (for another year at least anyway) tell you the tales of my guests to be, can anyone out there cheer me up with any of your own (or friends/families) invitation dramas???

Good Byes and Other Sad Things

I feel bad. We totally ripped Josh’s Mum off her big goodbye to her first child leaving home (and the country).

To be fair, it wasn’t my fault. It was Sydney traffic, combined with a massive amount of rain.

Discovery of the weekend? Sydneysiders have no idea how to drive in torrential rain. It’s like they all slow down to 30k/hr and try to navigate around puddles, as if getting the underside of their car wet is unthinkable.

Which is why that, instead of checking in two hours before our flight and having a relaxed coffee at the airport with Josh’s parents before we flew out, we ended up doing one of those frantic kerbside jump, grab and sprints for check-in an hour before departure.

I felt terrible, standing on the kerb as Josh’s Mum started to tear up and attempt to say goodbye to her eldest child, whilst knowing that a prolonged emotional farewell could potentially cost us two airfares.

I was 17 when I left home to go to university. From memory my parents waved me merrily off at the airport with the joy of wooohoooo one kid down, two to go!

It was a mad weekend. On one hand it was crazy exciting in a surreal kind of way. Finally, after a year, long distance was over. No more time differences, no more trying to synch calendars just to talk to each other for 20 minutes, no more weeks and weeks between visits, and tears and airports and fighting over the phone and wedding planning over email and trying to live two lives in two countries.

On the other hand, it was definitely a big reality check in all the things that Josh is giving up to move to New Zealand and marry me. His family, his friends, his church, his job, his entire life as he knows it. And he handled it all much better than I would have!

So the next part of our story is going to be pretty interesting. Josh adjusting to a new country, finding a job, making new friends and everything else that comes with moving. Me adjusting to having my fiancé actually in the same city as me and no longer being the sole ruler of my own universe.

Honestly, right now it’s pretty blissful. Last night I got home from work to Josh cooking dinner for me and, as I type this, he’s packing up my apartment for my move this weekend before coming to take me out for lunch. Can't really beat that :)

P.S. In actual writing related news I just found out yesterday that I came second in the Inspirational Category of the Lone Star Contest.

The Julie/Julia Question: What Am I Doing?

Last night I went to see Julie & Julia. Which I’ve been waiting to see for months.

Unfortunately, one of the downsides to living in NZ, is that movies arrive here about 3-6 months after they start in the US. My Sister’s Keeper and The Time Traveller’s Wife? Yup don’t get them until Christmastime.

Anyway, for those of you who aren’t familiar with the story, it’s based in Julie Powell, an about-to-turn-30 year old in modern New York City having a bit of a crisis in the face of her seemingly dead end life, while all her friends are fabulously successful with high flying corporate jobs.

So she decides to cook through all 524 of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking recipes in a year and blog about the journey.

In parallel, the movie tells the story of Julia Child (played by Meryl Streep) in post-war Paris and how the journey to the publication of the book unfolded.

Early in the movie, Julie and her husband are talking about what she could blog about. The key features being that it had to be something interesting, challenging and (since she wasn’t known for finishing things) there had to be a deadline. And voila along came Mastering the Art of French Cooking in a year.

Which got me thinking about my blog in 2010, and whether I want to continue on my merry way, doing what I’m doing, or come up with something a bit more purposeful.

As my sort-of byline states the purpose at the beginning of this blog was the road to publication (or not). Obviously chosen when I was exceptionally naïve and had no real clue how slow the wheels of this journey take (in Julia Child’s case, almost ten years!)

If you’ve been reading this blog, for any period of time, you’ll know that if that was all I talked about, then you’d either here from me about once every three months. Either that or this blog would be an endless cycle of one sentence posts.

Writing. Still writing. Editing. Sent in proposal. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting. Rejected. Rewriting. Entered competition. Finaled. Placed. Another rejection. Entered competition. Judges hated it. Period of self pity and introspection.

Yawn.

So what else could I do? My job is strictly off limits. Definitely no secret squirrel on the inner workings of parliament and power here. The next big adventure staring me in the face is getting married. But I highly doubt that Josh would be impressed with me blogging about the first year of married life. I could return to the tried and true book reviews and giveaways, but there are already squillions of people doing that.

And it was about there that the hamsters stopped turning the wheel. I love wine and food. But neither our budget, nor my small stature, could handle something like drinking my way through the white wines of Australia in a year. Love travelling, but once again, would need much bigger bank balance. I could tell you about New Zealand but once again, entire websites dedicated to that.

Anyone else got any ideas? You can't alter my apperance and it can't be something that is crazy time consuming, because I really don't have a lot of it going spare!

The End Of An Era

Okay, since I’m bored of my own conference drivel, here’s the short version of my agent meeting. It went great, my 15 minute appointment lasted for an hour (don’t worry I was the last one of the day so didn’t steal anyone else’s time!), he made me laugh so hard that I cried and also wanted a proposal. So success all round on the appointments front J

The plan is that I’ll send my proposal into both of them in the next few weeks, which means I probably won’t hear back til after Christmas what they think, but I’ll keep you posted either way on how things unfold.

So moving on. This week is the end of an era. I spent a lot of time over the past weekend contemplating this, whilst eating chocolate afghans and generally attempting to relish my last weekend in my apartment doing the single girl thing.

On Friday I fly to Sydney for the weekend, and on Monday I fly back, WITH Josh. Yes my friends, in four more sleeps long distance dramas will finally be over, and Josh and I will be located in the same city.

It’s a pretty big change. Okay, understatement of the year, it’s a VERY big change. For both of us. Obviously that’s a no brainer for Josh – the poor guy is moving out of home, cities, countries, churches and jobs all in one big hit, for me.

Wow. I seriously love this guy.

I am changing, well nothing, except moving house in two weeks, which doesn’t really count compared to Josh.

Let me be upfront here. We have absolutely no idea how we’re going to do this. We’re taking our relationship from three days of intensity, every three-four weeks, to real day to day life. And we have nine weeks to get the basics sorted, before we find ourselves not just in the same city, but in the same house, and whole new level of complexity gets added.

As well as being crazy about each other, we’re both independent, stubborn, opinionated, and used to being the sole dictators of our own universes for a very long time aka doing pretty much what we want, when we want and how we want.

This probably makes us both sound really selfish which, fundamentally, I’ve decided I definitely am. I spend my money on what I want, and am accountable to no one for it. I decide what I want to do with my spare time and don’t have to really consider someone else in making those choices. In fact, pretty much every choice I make in day to day life is about me, myself and I. Right down to whether or not I make my bed in the morning or brush my teeth at night. (For the record I always brush my teeth at night - but I'm just pointing out that if I didn't no one would ever know!)

And somehow I’m going to have to learn how to make it about Josh, we, then me. Especially over the next few months as Josh is settling into New Zealand.

Don’t get me wrong. I am incredibly excited and I can’t wait to enjoy getting to hang out with him on a random Wednesday night, or know that he’ll be around to give me a hug at the end of the bad day and no longer have to sit at the "odd" peoples table at every formal event I get invited to. But it’s been almost five years since I had a boyfriend in the same city as me. I honestly can’t remember what it’s like or what the rules are!

I have no doubt, this is going to make for some pretty entertaining blog posts as I manage to screw it all up royally. But before I begin this new adventure – anyone got any advice on how to do this so I don’t get knee capped at the first hurdle?

Happy Friday

I'm exhausted.

And so, this Friday afternoon, I am escaping work early to go and finally see..



I've heard great things and right now, in the face of finding a new home, wedding planning, work and rewrites, a dose of Pixar accompanied by some form of chocolate is exactly what I need.

Have a great weekend everyone.

First Time Pitching: Part Three

Apologies for the delay in posting this – last week my moulding, rotting, leaky apartment flooded and so this week has been somewhat caught up with looking for a new home. Which I will tell you all about next week!

So continuing on…

As you’ll remember, I spent the morning rewriting my first chapter to try and get the first lot of real “action” in by the fifth page because of the unwritten writing rule that that was what you need to do.

So Susie and I are heading off to lunch and she says offhandedly “By the way, one other thing. I know that people seem to think that you need to get things moving in the first five pages, but I actually like having a bit more time to get to know my main character before we throw them into turmoil.”

Big lesson. Sometimes it’s best to go with your gut instinct. I’d liked my first chapter, I hadn’t through it needed to be cut, but in the face of prevailing opinion, I folded, instead of sticking with what my gut told me was best for my manuscript.

Served me right really for my smugness after Donald Maas’s workshop thinking I had already got that down, to go and chop myself off at my own kneecaps the next day!

Okay this is just a quick one. Tomorrow I’ll tell you all about my agent appointment and hopefully, computer malfunctions allowing, either then or Monday will finally be able to post a few more photos!

First Time Pitching: Part Two

Blank as, I don’t know, a card? I should probably have a really good metaphor to go in here but I get so few of them I’m busy hording them all for my manuscripts!

Yup blank. I had spent pretty much the entire plane ride from San Francisco trying to figure out exactly what I was going to say in this situation and, by the end of it, had even come up with something that I even thought was pretty good, and now the one editor I want to pitch to is asking me the magic question and I’ve got nothing.

Anne is giving me an encouraging smile, Susie is waiting and so I open my mouth and speak and pray really hard that it makes some kind of sense.

I have no clue what I’m doing. I honestly don’t even remember what I said, except that I do remember that it started off okay but quickly went south. Badly. I have no idea when I’m supposed to stop and so I keep talking. Susie is as impassive as pro poker player while I basically verbally dump the entire plot of the book from beginning to end, in seemingly random order. It’s not pretty. And it was definitely divine intervention that saw it all take place with a glass of wine within reaching distance.

Anne, God bless her, interjects a couple of times to assure Susie that the actual writing is about 100 times better than I am at pitching it. Susie makes a couple of non-committal comments about a couple of aspects. Then we started talking about me having to rewrite my book to be based in the US which meandered into general conversation and my first not-wonderful-but-not-a-total-disaster pitch is done.

From there it was great – Susie was funny and smart, incredibly knowledgeable about the industry and pretty much just a great person to have a drink with on a Thursday night. Plus I got a pretty good idea of what kinds of things she wanted from people who pitched to her. Which only added a whole lot more pressure to my “official” appointment the next day because, by the end, all I could think was how great it would be to have an opportunity to work with her.

Noon the next day was show time. Have to admit that I completely freaked out at breakfast, missed the first part of my continuing education class (sorry Susie and Rachel), had a brainwave about everything that was wrong with the first couple of chapters and spent two hours frantically rewriting. Back to that later.

So I show up at my allotted time, so nervous I feel like I’m about to puke all over the hotel’s gorgeous carpet. I had thought, the night before, that I would be less so, since I’d already had the chance to mangle my pitch in front of her, so at least she had some vague idea of what my book is about. But nope, now having met her, it was even more crucial that this go okay.

I was under no illusions, she is not the type of person to ask for more to be nice, she definitely wasn’t going to ask for more because I was the friend of a friend who said I was good, I had to put my baby in front of her, and the only way she would ask for more would be if she liked what she read. In show time terms, in 15 minutes or so, I would know whether I got a call back or not.

Oh and I was the right before lunch appointment, so I was also the only thing standing between her and food. Now I don’t know about Susie, but nobody wants to stand between me and food when it’s lunchtime.

So the good news was that, thanks to my less than inspirational pitch, she at least had some idea what the book was about, so no one needed to suffer through that again. So, essentially, once we made a couple of minutes of chit chat, I handed her my first couple of chapters and held my breath while she read.

And read. And read. And read. She smiles a couple of times. I figure this is good when you’re trying to be sort-of funny. She gets to the end of the first chapter, asks me a couple of questions, and then keeps reading. I’m halfway through answering the second question when she cracks up laughing. I have no idea what she’s found so funny, but I figure it’s a very good thing. She doesn’t strike me as the type of person who laughs out loud easily.

Then she gets to the end of chapter two, puts it down, looks at me and asks “So, what would you like to know?” Um, in a nutshell, whether it was horrible, mediocre or other? I think I say “I’d like to know what you thought.”

Whatever it was she makes a couple of comments about some weaknesses, and some things that could be stripped out, makes a couple of positive comments about the voice and then says, “Having said all that, I am interesting in reading more.” And then the clouds part, a chorus of angels sing, a rainbow bursts forth across the room, all the other editors stand and applaud, okay not quite, she gave me her business card, but it FELT like all those things happened.

I managed to restrain myself from some form of spastic interpretive dance that would have put Simon Cowell into convulsions while we discussed what she wanted to be sent. In fact, I think I may have even managed to not burst forth with anything embarrassing, but stayed pretty collected.

Which was pretty impressive if you ask me (and apparently you do since you’re reading this) considering I had just somehow miraculously achieved my one big Denver dream, to pitch to Susie Smith and have her ask for more.

But, as we were walking to lunch I also learned one of my biggest conference lessons…

First Time Pitching: A Three Part Story

So, I’m finally going to chat about what I know you’re all wanting to hear – pitching. This is also known as survival of the fittest – the navigation of 15 minutes with an editor of agent, without their eyes glazing over, them pointing out the grammatical and/or spelling errors on your one sheet and/or any combination of a number of other things that lead to a sentence beginning with “I’m sorry but…”

The way that it works for ACFW is that you select three options for the editor and agent that you want to meet with, and then find out when you show up who it is that you’ve got your appointment with.

For me the editor pick was a no brainer. Having read pretty much every book in my genre, I was pretty clued up on what kind of book each publisher was releasing, how conservative they tended to be and where mine would probably be the best fit. So, on that front all I was doing was praying really hard that my appointment was with the editor with that house!

Picking my three agent appointments was much harder. The list was handily culled by the fact that a couple had already rejected me, then I had some recommendations from a couple of people in the know of who probably wouldn’t be a good fit for me and that left five.

From there I did my research, read as much as I could, looked at who they represented and what kind of books they had sold to what publishers and then, honestly, aimed high. I figured that since I was flying 20 hours to be at ACFW I had might as well go for the stars and so put my number one pick someone who represented a lot of great authors, had sold a lot of books to the publisher that I wanted to pitch to and who, even if my pitch crashed and burned, would have lots of great insights into the publishing industry.

Honestly, the editor thing was the biggest stress. I didn’t know what I was going to do if I didn’t get my appointment with Susie Smith (for the purposes of this blog). The more I learned about the other houses, the more certain I became that either we wouldn’t be the right fit, or that they already had someone writing something very similar to me and so wouldn’t be looking for anyone else.

So I get handed the magical sealed envelope a registration. Retire to my room and pray really hard that if Susie isn’t one of the names inside, that I don’t turn into one of those scary stalker conference attendees that you hear about pitching over bathroom stalls, slipping proposals under doors in the middle of the night or getting into some kind of WWF Smack Down for the last chair at her table during a hosted lunch.

You laugh, but trust me, I am definitely capable of such appalling behaviour.

Besides, I had to figure that God had gotten me into this crazy adventure, that he’d opened the doors that found me in the Denver in the first place, so whatever the names were, they were what they were for a reason, and I just needed to roll with whatever came my way.

Which was a good plan because, as it turned out, my first pitch wasn’t even during either of my appointments on Friday or Saturday, but instead over a glass of wine in the bar late Thursday night.

Right after Anne and I had been hit on by a guy from Texas while I was attempting to introduce Anne to the joys of Pineapple Lumps.

Now that, I was definitely not prepared for. Not the hitting on, I mean that’s been awhile so it took me awhile to even work out what was going on. But definitely not Susie, editor extraordinaire and 90% of the reason I’m in Denver, sitting down across from me (for the record – she’s a friend of Anne’s so it wasn’t completely random), ordering a beer and saying “So what are you working on at the moment?”

And my mind just went completely blank.

The Conference Day One

Day One of conference was the Donald Maas Earlybird Special. Mr Mass is a literary agent from New York who is the author is The Breakout Novel, which is basically a book on how to write a great novel.

It would be fair to say I was in despair after about the 30th minute of six hours as with every other sentence, I saw something else in my ms that needed to be fixed. Don’t get me wrong, having never attended any kind of writing workshop before, it was absolutely brilliant. But, having finally got Gravity to a point where I thought it was halfway decent, incredibly overwhelming to realise how many flaws it still had (and how much work would be required to fix them).

One of my co-attendees commented that she couldn’t face taking everything he had done and reworking her current ms, so was simply going to apply it to her next one. Which I guess is great if you don’t really want to sell the one already done (disclaimer – having never actually read her ms, I’m not saying it won’t, it could be a work of brilliance that needs absolutely nothing done to it) but since I really really want to sell Gravity, I’m pretty much stuck with rewriting it and reworking it to be the best that it can.

I think the most important thing that I got out of the whole day was the importance of having a filter and knowing your writing well enough to know what will (or won’t) work for you and for your manuscript. He made a lot of wonderful points, but there were a couple of things that won’t work for me. For example at one point he basically said that if you feel your book is lagging/sagging you should kill someone. Ideally someone unexpected.

Obviously, that might be brilliant for some scenarios but not for me. For a start my book is meant to be funny, so someone dying unexpectedly and the upheaval and grief that follows, really isn’t going to work (and there’s really no way to make it funny). Secondly, I need all my characters! I “killed” all the unnecessary ones a long time ago and killing one of them off just leaves a gaping big hole in the rest of the book!

Want to know what the other blinder was??? THE PEOPLE! Hundreds of them, all wearing the ACFW badge things. They were EVERYWHERE. Which is probably a pretty obvious statement considering I was at a writers’ conference but I live in New Zealand. I write in my own little isolated semi secretive hole. I don’t know anyone else who writes for “fun”, my writing group is me, myself and I, my critique group is virtual and Mr Maas was my first ever writing related workshop.

So being surrounded by hundreds of people all on the same journey, at different places in the process was a lot of fun, but also a massive big reality hit. In theory, I knew it wasn't just me trying to achieve this crazy thing, but I'd never actually met anyone else! More on that next time…

Conference Week

So, as many of you know, I spent from 16-20 September in Denver at the ACFW (American Christian Fiction Writers') Conference to try and see if there's any hope for my baby out there in the big wide publishing world (and recklessly splurge before I get married and officially have to consult someone else on how we spend our money!)

Over the next week I'll be blogging a bit about the whole fantastic, overwhelming, crazy event and hopefully finally sorting out the issues that I'm having trying to download the photos with my camera.

However, it was such a crazy week that I know that I'm going to completely forget to talk about some really important things so if you have any specific questions for me, please write a comment, and I'll definitely be sure to answer in one of my posts!

But first we'll do a bit of a set up. The conference was held at the Denver Marriott Tech Centre and I was all lined up to be sharing a room with the lovely Kimberly Buckner (gotta love random internet connections). However, at the last moment someone else's roommate couldn't make it and so we added the gorgeous Jaime Wright-Sundsmo (and Baby Chloe) to our suite.

It was the perfect fit - we are all at the same writing stage (wanna published but not quite total newbies), similar ages and well, we agreed that we were all pretty fun, which is very important.

Anyway let me talk to you about big conference problem #1 - trying to be cool and not turning into a grovelling simpering groupie when faced with multitudes of your favourite authors. And they're just there! Wandering around EVERYWHERE like normal people in jeans and t-shirts, drinking Starbucks and smiling and, honestly, it's like dying and going to wannabe writer's heaven.

In the first five minutes I saw Rachel Hauck (Sweet Caroline, Love Starts With Elle) wondering through the lobby. The poor woman has no idea what a near miss she had. If it hadn't been for the fact that I'd just run over my foot with my incredibly heavy suitcase and was slightly distracted, she would have been accosted by my very uncool, massive fan, alter ego. Which would have been awkward the next day when I was in her and Susan May Warren's continuing education class.

And then they just kept on coming, hordes of multi-published, incredibly talented authors, swarming, everywhere! I managed to hold myself together for Julie Lessman, but
Anne Dayton received what could only be described as 30 seconds of incoherent verbal diarhea, Brandilyn Collins a complete star struck grin and Kristen Billerbeck pretty much got the gaping goldfish.

Rachel Hauck I did finally get to meet on the Saturday night but, of course, I was trying so hard to play it cool and not launch myself at her raving about the greatness that is her writing, that I didn't even manage a lame compliment (she's also incredibly funny and her's and Susies workshop was the best one I took all week and has helped me fix a whole lot of things in my ms, so now I will buy their books forever in gratitude).

And these were the authors - they weren't even the editors and agents who I really needed to try and hold it together for! (And who, unfortunately, would remember me if I managed to make a monumental idiot of myself since I was quickly christened the girl "with the accent")

More on that next time...