Highlights From the 2006 BEA Writer’s Digest Conference

www.inkthinkerblog.com — Today marked the Fourth Annual BEA Writer’s Digest Conference, which was held at the DC Convention Center — which, as I learned, is conveniently located off the DC Metro’s Yellow Line at the Mt. Vernon Square stop.

The thing about the oh-so-convenient location is that I waaaaay overestimated the amount of time it would take me to get there and ended up arriving at like 7:10 and felt like the really dorky girl who’s so excited about the first day of high school that she gets there like an hour before the janitor comes in. Yeah, I was cool alright. Fortunately, there were about a dozen people there before me, so I wasn’t super-losery, just a little losery. Registration started at 7:30, and the event began at 8:30, so I had some time to kill. Fortunately, a very helpful venue employee pointed me toward a ridiculously overpriced Starbucks that equipped me with a $4 small coffee drink at a $3.25 2″ x 2″ piece of too-sweet banana bread. Mmmm… While enjoying my $7+ breakfast, I had a lovely conversation with a romance writer who formerly worked in Africa in the diamond industry. We exchanged cards, of course.

The keynote speaker, Jerry B. Jenkins, co-author of the Left Behind series (of which, I must admit, I am decidedly not a fan), gave an unexpectedly humorous talk about the importance of humility in the life of a writer and pointed out the value of staying out of the way of your own message when writing. A highlight was Jenkins’ sharing a letter from a 10-year-old who had read some of his books and suggested that he include more of pretty much every animal on the planet (including shellfish!) in his books and requested that Jenkins call him to discuss. “I was tempted,” Jenkins said, grinning. He also shared a collection of several malapropisms coined by a friend of his. I was particularly fond of the one about the friend whose ashes were placed over the fireplace in a “urinal.” “He must have been a real whiz,” Jenkins chuckled.

Next up in my day was a session called The First 50 Pages, led by Jessica Page Morrell, author of Between the Lines, Writing out the Storm, and the blog The Writing Life Too. She was a real treat, and her presentation covered everything from how to prepare yourself to write (envision a writer having the worst day ever — crappy day at a crappy job, flat tire in the rain on the way home, favorite cat dead, burnt popcorn — and write for that person) to pacing and plot points to incorporating description into the story without slowing the reader. I’m totally psyched to read Between the Lines, which I cheerfully purchased at 25% off at the conference bookstore and had autographed.

Next up was a session on 3 Ways to Make Yourself Irresistible to Any Agent or Publisher by Michael Larsen, author of How to Write a Book Proposal, and Elizabeth Pomada, author of Fun Places to Go With Children in Northern California, who are the co-founders of the Larsen-Pomada Literary Agency. Their three main points were that authors should (1) understand what agents and publishers are looking for, (2) develop their craft, and (3) make a commitment to their respective careers. They passed around a sheaf of handouts that are available on their website under the large heading “3 Ways to Make Yourself Irresistible to Any Agent or Publisher” and are definitely worth checking out and saving for future reference. The presentation was certainly handy, but the back-and-forth (him/her/him/her/him/her) style through the whole presentation was a little overwhelming, and I had a hard time following some of the comments because they were talking so fast to keep to the time restriction. Thank goodness for the handouts! They’re gold.

At lunch, we heard from Michael Cader, who created Publisher’s Lunch (which you should be subscribing to!), and Robert Hartwell Fiske, creator of the Vocabula Review. Cader, who is much younger than I expected, seemed caught off guard, but delivered a great (and extremely concise) talk about the publishing industry as a whole and about the importance of writers being advocates for themselves by having a platform and a network that create a ready-made, built-in audience for their respective books. It wasn’t necessarily new information, but he was very engaging and it was just fun to hear him talk. Fiske had prepared a speech on what he calls “dimwitticisms,” those cliched and say-nothing phrases that we rely upon so heavily in written and oral communication. His presentation style was emphatic and relentless, and I got the feeling that he was reading from a prepared statement rather than just talking, so it felt a little firing squad-ish to me. I’d definitely buy his books after that, but I’d be uncomfortable alone in an elevator with him — I mean, what if I unwittingly spoke a dimwitticism? Would he bludgeon me with the Concise Oxford English Dictionary? Perhaps I’ll stick with the stairs from now on.

After lunch was an unstructured book signing by the authors who were present. I had Jessica Page Morrell sign my copy of Between the Lines. While waiting for her, I overheard several conversations that John Warner had with people who were waiting in his line and was so taken with him that I grabbed Fondling Your Muse (hilarious!) and had him sign for me as well. What a delight he was! This guy is going places, and I’ll be keeping a close eye on his career (in an I-have-a-lot-of-respect-for-his-approach-and-expertise kind of way, not in an I’m-a-psycho kind of way, really.).

Just a side note here: The folks running the register at the conference bookstore were awesome. They were totally swamped, but stayed cheerful through the whole thing, and Scott Don’t-Remember-His-Last-Name from WD was extremely helpful — very accommodating of my eight bajillion trips to the register when I kept finding yet another book that I couldn’t live without. (And at $10 each for WMs and 25% off everything else, that was a LOT of books!) They were kind enough to let me leave my many purchases with them rather than having to lug them around all day, so if they happen to be reading this for some reason, thanks, guys!

After the signing, I stepped into Revision: A Fly High, Fly Low Approach, led by award-winning mystery writer Hallie Ephron, b

ut stepped back out again pretty quickly. It was going to be a great session, but a few minutes into it, I realized that it wasn’t going to be new info for me (you know, with the whole editing background), so I headed over to Your First Book: What to Expect, Avoid, and Anticipate, presented by Harcourt publicity director Jennifer Gilmore (whose pending first book, Golden Country, is due out in August 2006 from Scribner and sounds like it will seriously kick butt — one reviewer compared it to Doctorow’s Ragtime, if that tells you anything). Gilmore took us through the process a a first book, from finding an agent to selling the book to promoting it. She emphasized the importance of the writer’s role in promotion, but cautioned us to remember that we’re writers, not publicists, and we need to let the publisher and its people do what they’re there for and not get in the way. Gilmore also pointed out the importance of patience and was very frank about the parts of the process during which pretty much nothing happens on our end: while the agent is shopping the book, while the editor is working over the manuscript, that kind of thing. It was a great session and she was very conversational — definitely one of the high points of the day. One thing that surprised me was her observation that there are better ways to spend one’s time and money than on creating a website. In fact, as you may have noticed, she doesn’t have a website herself. As I said, surprising; but her point that a website should support your promotion and publicity efforts, not replace them — and that it must be updated constantly to avoid making your book seem to be doing less well than it actually is — was excellent, and no one had ever mentioned that in previous seminars I’ve attended.

Next up was a quick instruction session on the afternoon’s Pitch Slam. Basically, in a pitch slam, authors have three minutes to talk with an agent about a book idea. The actual pitch should take about one minute, and the other two minutes should be devoted to the agent commenting on the idea. You can see as many agents as you want, but it’s first come, first served, so prioritizing was essential. John Warner, the Fondling Your Muse guy, gave the intro, describing the two main types of pitches: the log line and X meets Y. The formula for the log line is protagonist + adjective, function, conflict/antagonist. The sample log line Warner created for for A Beautiful Mind, went something like this: “A brilliant mathematician goes all whack-job but he marries a hot chick so it turns out okay. Sort of.” For X meets Y, it’s pretty self-explanatory. The sample X meets Y for one’s first sexual experience was “It’s like heaven meets forty-five second, tops.” Death? “It’s like life meets not life.” He reviewed the main points one should cover in a query letter, and supported them by sharing a laugh-so-hard-you-seriously-think-you-might-throw-up-or-cry-or-do-both-simultaneously sample query he wrote: grab their attention; be confident; “hit ’em with your best fastball” (give the actual pitch); potential market/audience; rational appeal + emotional appeal; and “close by assuming that the agent wants to represent you and it’s only a matter of scheduling.”

The Pitch Slam session itself was awesome. I made it to three agents, one of whom was extremely unreceptive and not even remotely helpful, and two of whom gave me some great feedback, which I’ll save for another post.

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Finalist in 2006 Writer’s Digest Best Writer’s Website Contest

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