Agent Barbara Poelle of Irene Goodman Literary is here in Texas with me at the Northeast Texas Writers' Conference. (More on what East Texas is like and the proper protocol with dealing with fire ants later...)  This morning, Barbara gave some great advice to the crowd on breaking down the query letter, with plenty of "do" and "don't" information for writers.

Of note was the speech finale: Her "10 for 10 Rule: 10 Questions Writers Should Ask Themselves Regarding Their Query if They Have Received 10 Rejections from Agents."

      1. Are you thoroughly researching the agencies you are sending to?
      2. Does the specific agent you are querying represent your genre?
      3. Does your query have any of the "Don'ts" on it? (I do not have this list of "don'ts" here, but I presume it includes many gimmicky mistakes, such as scented paper, weird fonts, sending pictures of your kids, etc.)
      4. Do you have any spelling or grammatical errors in your chapter selections?
      5. Are there too many competitive titles currently crowding the genre?  If the market is flooded with vampire and werewolf romance, for instance, even a good book with the same basic subject matter may never see the light of day.
      6. Could it be called "chick lit" by someone in a meeting? The terrible, sad truth: This alone can kill a book these days.
      7. Is your word count too low? (Below 50K?)
      8. Is your word count too high? (Above 120K?)
      9. Are you straddling too many genres to be appropriately sold into one?
      10. Is this your strongest possible draft of the novel?

Just got back from Vermont and the League of Vermont Writers' spring session, where I spoke on all things agents.  Good little group up there, and everyone was quite nice.

I got to see plenty of the state (it's not exactly that big...) as we traveled from Burlington - the super green-liberal upper northwest section where the University of Vermont is - to Rutland in the middle of the state.  Just like you would expect, the state is chock full of these small cities, towns and "junctions" that each have their own small white churches with steeples.  Check out the pictures below to get some more Green Mountain State flavor (and I'm not just talking maple syrup).

Me taking "practice pitches" from
writers. They were practicing in
preparation for agents coming in July.

Off to Rutland, Vt. in a few days for the spring session of the League of Vermont Writers.  It's not exactly a conference, per say, as I am one of the only speakers.  I'll be doing a lot of speaking on queries, pitching and agents so attendees can soak up info in preperation of a mini agent pitch slam that the league is hosting in July.  (If you live in/near Vermont, consider going.)

I'm critiquing work and meeting with writers up there to talk.  I'm looking at fiction, mostly - synopses and manuscripts.  Here are some thoughts after reading samples for a while:

• Always include a header on your work.  That's the thing up top (not part of the regular text) that says NAME / PAGE NUMBER.
• Synopses have a very specific format.  I've blogged about this before, so I won't go into everything, but remember that characters are CAPITALIZED when introduced.  Also, the more names you have in the synopsis (and pitch, for that matter), the more confusing it is for us. 
• Avoid super-general sentences, such as "She overcomes her fear to achieve self-confidence and happiness."
• Avoid scenes where characters converse and summarize a scene that just happened.  We were there.  We remember.  Perhaps worse: Try not to skip a potentially awesome scene, only to tell all about it through dialogue as someone tells another character what happened at this awesome scene we missed.  This is telling, not showing.
• In queries, avoid telling the agent how the story should make readers feel, such as "this will make readers smile" or "my story will hopefully brighten your day."

State and Main was set and filmed in Vermont. 
GO YOU HUSKIES.

I'm in Colorado wrapping up the Northern Colorado Writers' Conference and, let me just say, it has been an excellent conference from start to finish.  Kudos to organizer Kerrie Flanagan for doing such a great job. 

So what was Fort Collins like?  Look at the picture below and see for yourself.  It was a very awesome town at the foot of the Rocky Mountains.  It's also a college town somewhat (CSU is there) and is big into the "Green" movement and living clean.

Spent the weekend in Newport News, Va., on the coast, at the CNU Writers Conference.  The moment I landed, it was a joy to feel 65 degree weather for a change.  (Ohio is still in the 40s right now.) 

The conference went very well.  It was held on the campus of Christopher Newport University, a college where every building is made with bright red bricks, giving it a modern colonial feel.  To Virginians, this is nothing notable, but I enjoyed it.

Attendees read a little of their
work aloud at the start of the
conference to get the ball rolling.

I gave one speech on agents and sat on a panel about publishing.  Michelle Andelman was the only agent in attendance and I don't envy her, as she was deluged in pitches and meetings.  I'm betting her brain was mush by the end of Saturday.  Speaking of Michelle, she gave a good presentation on query letters and I will post more about that soon.

The publishing panel, with me,
romance novelist Michelle Willingham,
and romance novelist Marla Cordle.

The conference happens every year, so consider it for 2009 if you're in the area.

This past weekend, I presented at the San Francisco Writers Conference. It was, as you probably guessed, great - and a lot of power players were there, from big-name authors (Clive Cussler, Tess Gerritsen) to numerous agents and more. I did two sessions, and sat in on a few more.  There was literary agent "speed dating" and "table sessions" with acquiring editors.  It seemed to be moving at a mile a minute, which is a good thing.

I got to talk with lots of agents, and shared many a laugh over dinners.

Being that this was my first trip to San Francisco, here are several things I learned about the city:
       1. Parking there is a Manhattan-esque nightmare.  Sometimes you have to park perpendicular to the street to avoid rolling down the hill.  Even if you do park normally along a street, once you put the car in park, you jerk the wheel left to make your front tires sideways - again, to prevent "runaways."
       2. No matter how much I was warned about how hilly the city is, it's worse. My legs hurt.
       3. Hawaiian restaurants are still alive and well.  
       4. Oh yeah, and I discovered that an agent at the conference used to date Jim Morrison.  Not a joke.  Awesome.

Robert Brewer, one of the editors of WD's awesome poetry blog (Poetic Asides), is inviting writers to e-mail him poetry-related questions that he will answer on the blog.  Simply e-mail your questions to robert.brewer@fwpubs.com and put "Poetic Asides Poetry Question" in the e-mail title. Take advantage of this! Robert is a published poet who knows what he's talking about.

It's been too long since I mentioned Kevin Alexander's This Writer's Life blog, where he muses on writing, and basically just makes me laugh all day long.

In mere days, I'll be walking the hilly streets of San Francisco, and presenting at the San Francisco Writers Conference.  I will be speaking on how to get your freelancing career going, and how to write an awesome query letter.

Nob Hill in San Fran

Here is a good place to again mention other upcoming conferences where I'll be presenting. If you have a chance to make it out to one of these conferences, do so.  They are all top notch.

CNU Writers Conference, Newport News, VA, March 14-16

Northern Colorado Writers' Conference, Fort Collins, CO, April 4-5

League of Vermont Writers' Spring Session, Rutland, VT, April 19

Northeast Texas Writers' Organization Writers' Conference, Camp Shiloh, TX (northeast of Dallas), April 25-26

Writer's Digest Books Writers' Conference, Los Angeles, CA, May 28
      The granddaddy shindig of them all!  This conference takes place just before the huge trade book fair BookExpo America, so we always have a slew of amazing editors, agents and authors presenting and taking pitches.  Last year, we had 60 agents and editors at perhaps the biggest pitch slam of all time.

Agents and Editors Conference (Writers League of Texas), Austin, TX, June 20-22

Willamette Writers' Conference, Portland, OR, Aug. 1-3

Just got back from Cocoa Beach, Fla., and the Space Coast Writers' Conference. It was my first conference of the year and the first in about three months, so it was nice to get back out and meet writers.  The conference went well, with good attendance and a great cast of speakers, agents and editors.  Look for forthcoming interviews with several of the agents who were in attendance, such as Deidre Knight (Knight Agency) and Lucienne Diver (Spectrum).

Friday night keynote speaker Davis Bunn.

I did two presentations - one on shaping your pitch to agents, and another on playwriting. Everything went well and, as usual, I still found a little bit of time here and there to play some piano for folks. It was pretty cold - about 60 degrees - so there was no sunbathing for me (All at once, Florida: "Thank God"), though I did get to enjoy a run on the beach.

Cocoa Beach in January.  A bit cold, but still enjoyable. 

A few us of got to let loose on Saturday night at a cool seafood restaurant.  Back at the hotel bar, there was a singles dance for seniors, which was pretty crazy (believe you me).  Maybe the coolest moment of the night was meandering down A1A with some people and then walking into a karoake bar and singing "Margaritaville" with Bloomingtree Press editor Madeline Smoot, who has quite the singing voice (believe you me again).

Texas gals Madeline Smoot (left) and Miriam Hees, editors of Bloomingtree Press in Austin.

The Jan./Feb of Writer's Digest has a good article by Susan Breen analyzing large agent pitch slams. And fortunately for us, the article is available online!

The article is definitely worth a look, as the chance to pitch agents is one of the biggest and best draws to writers' conferences around the country. Some larger conferences have a gigantic gathering of agents where writers can pitch numerous agents in a short amount of time. (This is sometimes called agent "speed dating.")

Here's an excerpt from Breen's article:

      "But can a pitch slam really help you land a book deal? It worked for me. I went to the NYC Pitch and Shop Conference in March 2006, and met with an editor from Plume, a division of Penguin. She liked my pitch, read my book and bought it. (The timeline was a little more complicated than that, but not by much.)   
      You'd think I'm a big fan of pitch conferences. And I am, but they're not right for everyone and you need to ask yourself some serious questions
before deciding to attend...
      • ARE YOU READY? These conferences aren't for beginners. Don't go if you're still puzzling over how to handle point of view, or if you don't have a polished manuscript...
      • DO YOU HAVE A GOOD PITCH? Can you get across the essence of your book in a few minutes? ...
      • HOW WELL CAN YOU REPRESENT YOURSELF? ...
      • CAN YOU AFFORD TO GO? Some of the biggest names in publishing go to these conferences, and your tuition can buy you the sort of access that would be impossible to get otherwise ... But you're paying a lot of money for that access...
      • CAN YOU HANDLE THE REJECTION? Publishing works at a glacial pace, and it's relatively anonymous. You can rip up that withering rejection letter and throw it away. But at a pitch conference, the response is instantaneous and personal."

See the full article here.