This summer has gone by at light speed. The past couple months have included frenzied activity editing and polishing novel 2. This week, I released novel 2, hoping that it is ready to take flight. Waiting to see how reviewers will react is always a nail biting moment.

In between bouts of  motherly concern for novel 2, I’ll take some time to decompress from the intense activity. Maybe even take some walks and start thinking about what a novel 3 might look like. I love this time. It’s a time of free fall when almost anything can happen. A time when there are many doors waiting to be opened and it’s so hard to decide which door should be opened because everything is interesting, fresh and exciting.

The end of summer is a perfect time for free fall. Life starts gathering inward to protect itself from the snow and ice of winter. But winter hasn’t come yet. For now, I can still walk outside without a coat and sit on my porch to read. But the days are numbered. That’s alright though because every ending is a beginning.

Bookmarked: Watchman by Ian Rankin

Almost without my noticing, we’ve slipped into the final haze of summer.  August saps motivation. Still, I believe we need August. August is the month when the world slips into a torpor.  Only the insects make sounds, repetitive chirring sounds that mix with the heat and sun. When the air starts turning colder, we wake up refreshed and ready to go.

Of course, if you live in Southern California, you can dismiss all this as ranting New England blather. Seasons are part of what I love about New England. Seasons mark off the passing of time. And it’s hard without seasons to pay attention to something you’d rather ignore, like time. Unless you’re under the age of twenty when time goes too slowly.

Today I’ll sit back in my chair with a cold ice tea, a cloudless blue sky, and crack open a book.  Ah, and it occurred to me that in my conference frenzy I’d stopped listing my reading books. So today I added back “Bookmarked.”

When I’m done reading, it’s back to writing.  What else is there for a writer to do?

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on pitches recently. You need to pitch to sell your novel. What makes the perfect pitch? Having an attention grabbing hook is key. The hook is a short (1  sentence) summary of the essence of your novel. After the hook, you want to give your audience (either agent or editor) a feel for your characters- who are they and why would they do what they do in the novel. Additionally, you want to summarize the essential plot of your story from beginning to end in paragraph or two of content. The pitch lasts three to eight minutes generally.

Three to eight minutes might seem like a long time if you hate public speaking. (Regardless of whether you pitch one or five people or more, I consider a pitch public speaking. It differs substantially from an everyday conversation where there is a lot of back and forth and generally lower stakes like locating the nearest highway ramp or finding out if a seat in a theatre is taken).

On the other hand, you may feel three to eight minutes will be a breeze. A few minutes- how hard can it be? My advisor once told me, “I can give an hour talk, but I don’t have time for a ten minute talk.” As I began giving presentations myself, I understood how accurate he was. The shorter the presentation, the more critical each word is. Distilling ones thoughts down to a concentrated nectar and then presenting this nectar intact and with style is tough.

The only thing that works for me is the brute force slog. Get the words on paper and rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. After a long time, the words seem to flow naturally. They carry passion and elegance. When a presentation is perfect, it seems to take no effort at all. The words just flow out as though the speaker just stopped in for coffee and just had to put his/her two cents in. But we who present know differently.  We know the secret. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse.

ThrillerFest is coming up soon and a lot of writers are wondering if they should pay the fairly substantial fee to attend. Last year I attended the CraftFest and AgentFest portions of the ThrillerFest conference. Based on my experience, I recommend that any writer who focuses on the thriller genre should attend this conference if possible.

CraftFest emphases basic writing techniques as well as pointers for selling your manuscript. Lectures at CraftFest are given by well-known authors, agents and editors. If you you want to learn or brush up on technique, you will benefit from this portion of the conference. You will also have the chance to network with industry professionals.

I highly recommend AgentFest. I don’t know of any other opportunity to pitch to 40 top literary agents at once. That said, the agents do not accept every manuscript pitched to them. Expect that some will say no based on suitability of your novel to their interests. What you will get at AgentFest is experience in pitching and the chance to meet agents who might be interested in your work. I recommend researching the agents before pitching to them. Select those most likely to be interested in your specific story. That will make the experience better for you (the writer) and for the agent. If you haven’t finished at least one full draft of your novel, I recommend not pitching. It’s hard to pitch if you don’t know what happens in the story. (Unless of course you have several published novels that sell well but if that is your situation, you could likely contact agents outside the pitch room.)

To attend AgentFest, you must attend CraftFest.

Good Luck and Happy Pitching!

Apologies for the relative silence on my blog! If I released audiorecordings, the past few months wouldn’t be silence (as it appears on the blog) but an unrelenting click clack of keys typing out words. I’ve been fully consumed by editing novel 2. Beside the editing there’s the query and synopsis writing. Finally, the dreaded pitch (yes, indeed, you can get 400 pages down to one line)!

I’m tremendously lucky to be part of CoLoNY and RWA as a whole. Through these groups, I’ve been cramming with my writer friends. I feel just like I’m at college again! Only this time, I’ve got generous, wonderful, highly experienced writers showering me with advice and reading drafts (not to mention listening to my pitch!)

So, please, excuse the silence and do check back! I hope to get some posts in during the conferences and will definitely post afterwards with some highlights of RWA Nationals and ThrillerFest.

As the summer draws to a close, so to my term as Treasurer for my RWA Chapter reaches the end. I have been priviliged to work with some wonderful women on the Board. All of them are passionate about writing and it’s good to be around people who inspire me to keep moving forward with my work. It will be hard in some ways to step down but I hope to gain more writing time. It’s a hard battle to carve out minutes here and there but it’s necessary to keep moving Novel 2 forward. On the bright side, I plan to continue being involved in the chapter, to keep being inspired and to watch the group grow!

I’ve spent a lot of my life in New England where my second novel is set but I believe it’s attention to detail that really makes a story come to life. Plus I just plain love research! Yes, I admit to being one of those bizarre people who loves to wander through library stacks inhaling the aroma and running my fingers over the spines until the right book jumps out. (Online catalogue? Those are for people who order off the menu.)

Besides libraries, I like to wander the streets, listen in on conversations, take photos, stare at people and generally be a pest worst than a tourist. I especially enjoy looking at the architecture of buildings (the older the better usually) and antique furnishings.

I was able to do all of the above recently while researching my second novel to be set in a New England coastal town. I won’t say which one yet because the book is still in the early stages.

I will promise that, like my first novel (which I hope all can soon purchase), it will reveal a terrifying world that has sprung from a series of ancient events. It will blend fact and fiction, contemporary lives and history and love as well as hatred. (Sounds so exciting I can’t wait to buy it! Oh, guess I better get writing! And make a few offerings to the Muse. Do you think she likes chocolate?)

I’m glad you joined me today. As you can see, I’m an author and fan of medical thrillers. Take a look around, whether you are a fellow author, thriller fan, agent or editor, I’m sure you will find something you enjoy on my site. The thing I’m most excited about is my recently completed novel. Here’s a taste:

“In 2110, Meara Flannagan invents a drug that can cure or kill. If her pursuers catch her, the choice may no longer be hers. Meara’s only chance of escape lies with Sebastian Gates, a security guard sent by her former employer to arrest her for theft of the drug.

With time running out to stop a drug-induced holocaust, can Meara and Sebastian stop a fanatical Senator and a cabal of world leaders from destroying the remaining United States?”

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