Bryce Moore's Blog, page 311

Why Bryce Moore?

One of the questions that quite a few people have asked since my book deal became public is why I'm going with a pen name. Why not use my real name, and why Bryce Moore?



The answer isn't too terribly complicated. For one thing, Bryce Moore IS my real name--Moore is my middle name. So it's not really much of a pen name.



Here's the second thing: try googling my real name. My phone number at work comes up as the first Google result. The fact is, I do a lot of tech stuff at work, and I'm very actively involved online. In the end, I wanted some sort of barrier between my two "hats." Yes, if people try and find out my real name, they will. That's okay. It's not like it's top secret or anything. My agent argued against using a pen name, and I almost decided not to go with it. Then those Google searches came back, and it stopped really being a question anymore.



So Bryce Moore it is.

How I Got an Agent: The End

Okay, this ongoing saga has gone on long enough. Time to bring it to a stunning conclusion. Or at least an end. In our last episode, I had just revised my whole book in about two weeks, despite a busy September. Stacy had it, and it was out of my hands. The next waiting game wasn't as bad as before. I knew it wouldn't last forever, for one thing, and I hoped that even if it went poorly, I'd be able to revise once again. At the same time, Joshua happened to send me a shipment of German books. (I've been very happy to get one of these a few times a year from him. He gets book deals in German, they send him the books to show it really has been printed, he sends the books to me. It's a wonderfully parasitic relationship, and it keeps me stocked with all the German fantasy I could ever read.)



Anyway, I happened to get a shipment, and since I always would email to thank him, I emailed him and said thanks and "oh by the way" Vodnik was up at an acquisitions meeting and I'd hopefully be looking for representation soon. He emailed right back to ask to see the revision, and I emailed it off.



A few weeks later, I got the email from Stacy: they wanted to make an offer on Vodnik. I called Joshua to tell him, and he asked for an evening to read the revision and make up his mind. Now, some of you are no doubt thinking, "Duh. Of course he'd represent you once you already have a deal set to go through. Free money." But that's not really how it works with good agents. They don't just want to represent anybody--they want to represent people and books they really love. One of my friends was in this exact situation before with Joshua, and Joshua ended up turning him down. (He went on to make a killer deal on his series, so don't feel too bad for him.) So this was by no means a slam dunk yet.



But happily, I talked to Joshua the next day. It was a yes. Actually, Eddie Schneider is the agent in charge of YA at JABberwocky, so he's been handling the negotiations and such, but since Joshua and I have this five years of history at this point, Joshua's still staying in the loop to give me writing and career advice.



Now that it's all done, how does it feel? About like how all my author friends said it would feel. There was about a week or two of intense elation, and then that subsided into a "what do I do now" stage. For so long, I've been focused on writing a new book or sending out queries on existing books, trying to get to where I am now. Now that I'm here, I have a whole different set of things to focus on. Revising Vodnik again, for one thing--I'll start that soon. And after that, writing my next piece: either revising something I've written, or writing something new. We'll see what it is.



Whatever it is, I'm looking forward to the months and years ahead. It's been a long road to get to this point, and then you discover there's just more road in front of you. There's probably something deep to think about there, but it's Monday, and I'm not up for deep. If anyone has any questions, please ask.

How I Got an Agent (and a Book Deal): Part V

Sorry I didn't get time to post yesterday. It was quite the hectic day for me, and I just plum ran out of time. Anyway--on to today's post. When last we met, I had submitted Vodnik to Tu Publishing, which then turned into Tu Books, and I hadn't heard anything back, but (as I said) that's the nature of the beast in this industry. Six months isn't a long time to wait, but it's sort of standard for the amount of time to wait before you inquire to see if any progress has been made. (At least, that's the arbitrary number of months I'd set in my head). So I waited until September to shoot off an email to Stacy to see if Vodnik was anywhere near getting a decision made.



I was always hesitant to be pushy at all about books I'd submitted, and I don't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. If you haven't heard back from an agent or editor, that could mean that they're on the fence about your book and thinking about accepting or rejecting it. If you get pushy, that could make the decision to reject that much easier. Then again, if you say nothing, maybe nothing happens. See the dilemma? And speaking from personal experience, there's nothing quite like the agonizing an aspiring author goes through when he's waiting to hear back from an agent or editor. You know that it's not likely that it'll be a yes, and you've heard so many no's before that you keep telling yourself this one will be a no, too--but you can't help but be hopeful, because sooner or later, it's got to be a yes, right? But it doesn't have to be a yes ever, and you know that, so you keep those hopes down. It's a vicious cycle, and you repeat it every. single. time. you send another query or--even worse--full manuscript out. And each time, you finally get that no, and then you're depressed and wonder if you're deluding yourself about the quality of your work.



Do you know what one of my worries was? It was that I was the literary equivalent of one of the contestants on American Idol. You know--one of the ones who are just so bad, but their friends and families have all told them how great they are. Or (just as bad), being one of the ones that's decent, but just not great. They're pleasant to listen to, but you doubt they'll go far. It's strange, but I feel quite confident in my ability to evaluate any piece of writing . . . but my own. Go figure.



At any rate, I digress. Back to the story.



I sent Stacy a quick email on September 9th. Tu Publishing had started announcing acquisitions, and I congratulated her on the progress they were making, and just asked if she had any update on Vodnik. When I hit send, I didn't expect a response for a week or two at the earliest.



It came an hour and a half later. Not only was it positive, but it was really positive. Stacy had liked the book, but was waiting for a bit later in the Tu Books publishing schedule to look at it more closely, since it lacked the people of color element. I responded with an idea that had been germinating at the back of my mind since I'd read about the people of color emphasis at Lee and Low. While most people in Slovakia are as Eastern European White as they get, there's a significant minority population: the Roma. (You might know them as Gypsies, although that's not the PC term for them, FYI). I emailed Stacy back to see if she'd be open to me revising the book, incorporating a significant Roma element into the revision. (I'm oversimplifying here to make things flow with the story more--there will be more explanation of Roma and the revision at some future point on my blog).



After a bit of back and forth, it was set: Stacy was going to reread Vodnik and email me any big changes that stood out to her, and I was going to do the same. Then, I'd revise the book. Oh--and I'd get it all done by the end of September. Vodnik at the time was about 95,000 words, give or take. This was happening at the same time that I was working on my wood shed, painting the garage, and doing a slew of other things in my life. (If you've been reading my blog for a while, you'll no doubt recall this period.) In fact, just a few days before I'd emailed Stacy in the first place, I'd been complaining to Denisa that I was too darn busy, and I was on the lookout for things to ditch in my life to simplify my schedule.



But you know what, when opportunity knocks, you don't just say "hold on until I'm ready." I dove into reading Vodnik, which I hadn't touched in over three years. I had some friends read it and get me suggestions, too. Stacy got her notes to me on the 17th. For the next week and a half, I had no spare time at all. I finished the revision on the 27th, exhausted, but happy with it.



I should be able to bring this storyline to a close with my next entry in the series--hopefully on Monday. I'm at a conference tomorrow, so don't be surprised if you don't see anything from me. Doubt I'll have internet and time to post. In case I don't, have a happy weekend!

I Have a Book Deal! (How I Got an Agent: Part IV)

So it's official. I've sold Vodnik to Tu Books, a new imprint at Lee and Low that's focusing on publishing multicultural fantasy, sci-fi and mysteries. This is the last bit of info that I've been waiting to fall into place before I continued my How I Got an Agent series, which can now also be called How I Got a Book Deal.



When last we met, I was talking about how I kept submitting new novels to Jabberwocky, reluctant to revise any of the ones they'd already seen. While I was submitting to agents, I was also submitting to editors. For those of you who don't know, typically these days you'll get an agent first, who will then send your book to various agents and sell it to the highest bidder (or only bidder, as is often the case). Why is it this way? Because most publishing houses have restricted their submissions policies, now only accepting agented manuscripts (books that are represented by an agent). So if you want to "break in," your best shot is with an agent. Agents work on commission--they typically get 15% of whatever you get. But they also negotiate your deals for you, and you usually end up coming out ahead on the deal, even after their cut.



Anyway, this is just to explain that I wasn't restricting myself to agents alone. I would send in manuscripts to publishing houses I thought would be a good fit. One such place was Mirrorstone, an imprint of Wizards of the Coast (the place that does all the D&D books). I sent Weaver of Dreams to Stacy Whitman when she was working there, and she asked to see the full manuscript. While it didn't work out (Mirrorstone closed their non-D&D lines, and Stacy moved on to different things), I kept Stacy in the back of my mind under the "People who seemed to like what they'd seen from me" file--the same place Joshua was listed. When Stacy started a new publishing house called Tu Publishing, dedicated to printing multicultural fantasy, I immediately made the connection between it and Vodnik, my Slovak-based fantasy novel. They started accepting submissions at the beginning of 2010, and I sent in Vodnik as soon as I could. I heard back March 4, with Stacy requesting the whole manuscript. (Editors, like agents, usually just want a query letter and possibly some sample chapters. If they like what they see, they ask for more.)



Enter the waiting game.



Soon after I sent Vodnik in, Tu Publishing was bought out by Lee and Low, and it became Tu Books. That's great, right? Because now it wasn't just an independent publishing house--it was part of an established house that's already made a name for itself in the multicultural world. True. But it also focuses on publishing books about people of color, and Slovakia (in case you've never been there) doesn't have much in the way of people of color. At least not western Slovakia. My characters were all quite white. I read the change in focus with a bit of disappointment, but I still hadn't heard back from Stacy, so a glimmer of hope remained.



Months went by, and the glimmer got smaller and smaller. I moved on to different writing projects (well, I did that immediately--you get nowhere in this business waiting to hear back from people. It can take months, and that's just the nature of the beast. Always be writing something new.)



And . . . I'm out of blogging time again. Tune in tomorrow for more!

A Plea for Halloween

Interesting note: from what all my Utah friends have posted, it appears almost assumed that when Halloween is on a Sunday in Utah, everyone goes trick or treating on Saturday. Well that's now how we roll here in Maine--picking random days and just going from house to house looking for candy. No, we restrict it to the 31st of October, regardless of the day of the week. And after some brief debate*, Denisa and I took the kidlets out to trick or treat, despite the snow earlier in the day and the cold temperatures at night. I'm glad we did.



We'd already been to a Halloween party and gotten tons of candy. But in my personal opinion, Halloween isn't just a big candy-delivery system. It's more than that. It's going out and being social. It's knocking on people's doors that you wouldn't normally knock on. In our ever more "don't talk to strangers" society, I think it's nice to have unifying secular holidays like Halloween and Christmas (yes, Christmas IMHO is both a religious and secular holiday, and a lot of the angst people feel each year could be done away with if we'd just recognize this and move on. I totally believe in both aspects of the holiday--Nativity and Santa. They just happen to be celebrated on the same day. Much like the poor souls out there who had the misfortune to be born on December 25th.)



But in the end, Halloween is for the kids. It's for the expression on DC's face last night when we were going from house to house, and people were giving her CANDY. For free. She thought it was the best thing ever. (DC is addicted to candy. She craves candy night and day, and will do just about anything for it. Yes, I know that might seem to describe most children, but DC . . . it's a much more deep-seated passion. TRC likes candy. For DC, it's her raison d'etre.) TRC went as a Jedi (in an awesome robe hand sewn by Denisa's mother) and DC was a princess butterfly fairy (it changed depending on what she was thinking of at the time--wand, dress, wings, pink--it could be whatever she wanted it to be). I hope to post pictures later, if I find time and proper cables. TRC really wanted to put on a light saber duel at each doorway, in hopes that good performances would earn us additional sweets. I managed to convince him that random light saber battles in between houses would probably result in fewer casualties.



The fact is, kids love to play dress up, they love to eat candy, and they love to show off. Halloween is the intersection of all of those desires, and it's no wonder kids love it so much. I always enjoyed going out when I was little, and it's been a blast every year to get to see my kids have the same amount of fun.



*Is trick or treating a Sabbath-day approved activity? That'll no doubt vary on the family. My two cents: it's a family activity, gets you out of the house and out of the same old same old, and you visit neighbors. There are some Halloween activities that likely wouldn't be very Sabbath-friendly (blood, guts, scary stuff, etc.), but for a six year old and a two year old, there ain't much to say . . .

Buffy Time: Review of Season Six

I know, it's been forever since I wrote a good Buffy review, and I'm sure you're all in withdrawal. One of the reasons for the hiatus is that I've been otherwise occupied. Denisa and I have just been too busy to have time for Buffy. But we've returned to our current favorite hobby: staying up too late devouring pop culture. And what a fun hobby it is.



Season Six of Buffy the Vampire Slayer has to be my personal favorite so far. The character arcs for all of the characters were really well done and mostly believable. The great thing about sticking with a show this long--a show that actually knows what it's doing--is that the payoffs just keep getting better. You know the characters, and you know their histories. Because of that, the actions of the characters mean a whole lot more. If someone betrays a friend, you understand just how harsh a betrayal that is. That's what really appealed to me about the later seasons of Lost, and it's what made this last season have such oomph for me.



Favorite (spoiler-free) parts?



Spike's arc was really well handled. As a character, he's been one of my favorites from the very beginning, and it's always entertaining to see where he ends up next.



The Trio as bad guys--consistently funny. I loved the endless stream of pop culture references. A lot of the time in my writing, I hold back on pop culture (despite how many people see nothing but pop culture in the end result). With the Trio, the writers held nothing back. Those guys are immersed in pop culture. The references were quick and as obscure as possible. Good times.



Anya--I really like her character and the set up of it. I enjoy her performances and was involved in her story every time it took



The core three--Buffy, Willow and Xander all had nice developments in this season. This isn't some static soap opera, where the same issues are dealt with week after week after endless week. Where in earlier seasons I had criticized the pacing at times--how it seemed some plot arcs took forever to develop and come to a resolution (Buffy and Angel, anyone?), in this season, everything seemed well placed. The writers never dwelt on a topic for too long, and they never ignored an issue for too long, either.



It all adds up to a great season. Not sure if it would be the same if I had started with this one, but that's okay. A show like this depends on faithful viewers. Buffy is worth the time investment, no doubt about it.

How I Got an Agent: Part III

Welcome back to another exciting entry into this series, started here and continued here. When last we met, I had admitted to being extraordinarily stupid. Not that that's anything particularly noteworthy for me, but in this case, the stupidity had to do with my approach to writing and trying to "break in." What approach?



The "write a book, submit it to an agent, get a nice rejection and write a new book" approach.



In my defense, I didn't just pursue this approach. Once my final draft was rejected, I sent it around to other places, as well. Not rabidly. I didn't send out hundreds of queries. I didn't query everyone in the book. I would send it to some agents I thought might be interested, and I would send it to some editors who also were open to queries. Over the years, I did have more nibbles. Some requests for full manuscripts, some more personalized rejections, but no Big Results.



So how was what I was doing stupid? For one thing, I wasn't approaching writing as I approached getting a library job. When I wanted a job badly, I sent out 50 applications in the space of about three months. I would have sent out more, but those were all the jobs I qualified for. And those applications took time and effort to seek out and complete. It was hard work. When it came time to query about getting a book published or getting an agent, I sent out sporadically. I'd send three or four, then wait a few weeks or few months and send a few more. I wasn't methodical, and I didn't devote a lot of time to it.



Would things have gone differently if I had? I can't say. What I can say is that I didn't approach it on a professional level, and so I got amateur results. If you're not willing to put in the time and effort to doing this as a business, it might always remain a hobby. That makes sense to me now, and I hope it will continue to do so. Then, I was too afraid of rejection--or at least that was my mental excuse. But come on--when the time came for me to get a job, I applied like crazy, rejection or not. You can't lose a game you don't play, but you also can't win, if you know what I mean.



The second stupid thing I did was not revise. I saw "no" and my brain shut down there. Are the five books I submitted bad books? No, I don't believe they are. They just weren't ready yet for the next step. They weren't at a high enough level. In this instance, I blame me being new at the whole writing thing. If you hike halfway up a mountain--higher than you've ever gone before--then you feel like you've accomplished something, and you have.



But you're still only halfway up the mountain.



What I should have done with those rejections from Joshua is looked at them, analyzed them, and then continued doing whatever it was I had been doing up to that point. Writing whatever book I was working on. Finished whatever project I had going. Then, when I had a bit of time to think and be more objective, I should have gone back to the rejections, reread the books, and done another draft of them. Polished them even more. Granted, nowhere did Joshua say "Please revise this and send it back to me." I would have done that if he had asked. But he also left the door open, saying he could see potential, but he couldn't decide if it would be worth my while to revise, or if I should just try something else.



Maybe I could have not revised one or two books, but five? I should have tried something different--actually revising--before I ever got to five submissions. Live and learn, right.



All of this will make ever so much more sense once I get to Part IV, but there are a few things that need to happen for me to write that one, so I'll just end it here for now. Next week, Part IV will come.



Promise.

How I Got an Agent: Part II

In Part I, I talked about how I'd gone to a Con to mingle with editors and agents in the fantasy field, and how I'd ended up getting a phone call response to my book out of one of the connections I made there. I just want to note again how I don't feel like that description really does the process justice. On paper, it seems so cut and dry. I went to the con, mingled, got a good contact. It wasn't that way in real life. For one thing, I don't know if Joshua would have given me the time of day if it hadn't been for Brandon's introduction, although for the life of me I can't remember now if Brandon introduced me to Joshua personally when I first met him or not. Moot point.



What I mean to say is that I don't know if I can wholeheartedly endorse the Con approach to meeting PWMs. If you're naturally outgoing and can mingle with the best of them, then maybe it would work for you. I failed to note in my last post another key thing: I essentially crashed the Tor and Del Ray parties. I certainly didn't have an invite, and though I generally believe that the parties aren't "closed," it didn't do much to help me feel like I belonged, if that makes sense.



I did go to one more Con: WorldCon in LA the next summer. World Fantasy was more of an intimate Con. No hordes of fans, just a couple thousand. WorldCon . . . was much bigger. Very easy to feel lost in the mix there. I once again went with friends, and this helped somewhat. I once again went to parties. But in the end, I had a lukewarm feeling about cons. I personally am not a good enough extrovert to be able to go up to total strangers with the purpose of getting them to publish or represent my book. (Of course, I plan on going up to strangers and trying to get them to BUY my book, so perhaps I'm going to have to get more practice. One hopes that actually having a book makes a difference. Sort of a tangible piece of evidence that I am not crazy. Who knows?)



So . . . Cons can be very useful. You certainly get to see and talk with some of the movers and shakers in the industry. Could that be spun into a successful novel pitch and an eventual book deal? Theoretically. But keep in mind that there are tons of other aspiring authors doing the same thing. These poor editors and agents get a lot of requests. Some are just flat out crazy (trying to shove a manuscript to the editor while he's in a bathroom stall, for example). Some are weak. (My approach). None are guaranteed.



In my case, I sent Joshua the next 50 pages of my book and waited a few weeks. I got a very nice two page letter explaining what he saw as the flaws of the book, and how he would have to pass on this one, but also saying he was very interested in seeing more from me. A few days later, he even called again to see if I had any more questions for him. So while I didn't get an agent on my first submission, I did make a very good first impression.



So. He wanted to see something else. At that time, I was working on a very different book (Ichabod), but I wanted to send Joshua something similar to what he'd just seen. Building on the suggestions he'd made on the first book I sent him, I wrote a new one, workshopped it, and sent it off. Joshua passed on it, once again writing a very nice letter detailing the reasons why.



This set up a pattern for me. Over the next five years, I sent Joshua Weaver of Dreams, The Adventures of Barboy, Vodnik, Ichabod and Pawn of the Dead. Each one of them received pretty much the same answer--a letter saying there were things he enjoyed, but that ultimately it was another no from him. Each one felt like I was close enough that I just needed to make a few tweaks to my approach to writing, and I'd be solid for the next book. Each time I wrote a new book instead of revising the current one.



This was stupid for a number of reasons, some of which are obvious, some of which might not be.



But all of which will have to wait for Part III. I'm all out of lunch break, folks.

Internet Speeds and You

I'll have more info about how I got my agent in days to come, but I have to spread out the story a bit for reasons I can't get into at the moment. In the meantime, here's an important PSA (public service announcement) from yours truly, reposted from my entry over on my library blog.



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In today's tech Tuesday post, I want to talk a bit about internet speeds, since many people I've talked to over the years seem not to understand them. They know there's "fast" and "slow", but that's about it. Allow me to explain. The slowest of the slow these days would be dial-up--using something like AOL or another internet provider to connect via your phone connection. This clocks in around 56 kbit/second (theoretically--in practice it's more like 40-50). This is very slow. Painfully slow.



Remember: painfully slow=50 kbit/second.



So what's fast? Blazingly fast in America these days would be around 50 mbit/second. This is about 1000 times as fast as dial up. It also is only available in large cities, and costs an arm and a leg to get. ($155/month)



Fact: you do not need internet speeds this fast.



So what's reasonable? Well, I get 3 mbit/sec at my house, and that's adequate. I'd like 4 or more, but such is life. It's a balance between cost and return. At work, I get something like 35 mbit/sec, which is very appreciated, especially when I have to download large files. Of course, there's the other side of the coin: upload speeds.



When you're using the internet, sometimes you're getting information--you're watching a movie, looking at pictures, listening to music, etc. That's the speed people usually look at, and it's the one I've discussed so far. But sometimes you're giving information--putting pictures on Facebook, trying to Skype with a friend, playing a video game with other friends, etc. This is called upload speed, and it can be just as important, but as a rule, if you get a high download speed, you'll get a relatively high upload speed, as well.



So what people do is they call up their cable or phone company and say "I want fast internet." The cable or phone company cackles and hooks them up with "fast internet." Since people don't understand what fast is (or how to measure speed), they just accept the idea that they now have "fast" internet. It's certainly faster than dial-up, so why worry? This is crazy to me. If you're paying for a certain internet speed, you should be sure you're getting what you're paying for.



How do you tell?



Go to speedtest.net and follow the onscreen instructions.



Don't use anecdotal evidence. Don't assume that it "feels" fast, so it must be fast. Test it. Your internet service provider (ISP) should be obligated to provide you with consistent speeds at least 80% of what they're advertising. (Sometimes internet speeds can bog down, but if you're paying for 10 mbit/sec and only getting 1, there's a problem.) If you note a problem, contact your ISP. Complain. You're paying the money, they need to provide the services.



Why does it matter? If you don't notice you're slow, why care? I suppose if all you do is look at websites with no videos or Flash or the like, it doesn't. (But then, why are you paying for really fast internet?) If you're trying to play games, stream movies on Netflix, Skype with video and the like, a faster connection will give you a noticeable improvement.



In the end, this is just a message to encourage you to be aware of what you're paying for and what you're getting in return. Because a well-informed consumer is a happy consumer.

How I Got an Agent: Part I

It's official. After five years, I have an agent. Correct that--after five years of TRYING, I have an agent. I've been writing since 2000. Writing daily since about 2002 or so. How did I get said agent? Well, I can give the general outline right now, though some specifics might need to wait to come out later.



Back in 2003, I was invited to be in a writing group with Brandon Sanderson. Brandon was in the English MA program at BYU with me, and had a book deal in the works with Tor for Elantris. Anyway, he had been trying to get a second writing group going for a while, and I came into the scene then. It was a small group at first, but it eventually got to be about eight or nine by the time I left Utah in 2007. We met weekly, with submissions capped at about 5,000 words per week. Good times.



Anyway, Brandon often told us about how he got his first book contract. He'd taken a writing course at BYU from Dave Wolverton (I was actually in the same class, but I never spoke to Brandon then--he sat across the room from me.) Dave told him that it was time to start going to Cons. You've heard of some of them: ComicCon, DragonCon, WorldCon. Conventions with thousands of fantasy fans banding together. And not just fans. If you go to the right Cons, there are fantasy authors, agents and editors there, as well. There will be panels that focus on different aspects of the business, upcoming trends, etc. Anyway, Brandon started going to these Cons, going to parties and doing his best to sell his books. That's where he met his agent for the first time, and it's where he met his editor, too. So Brandon was a big believer in going to Cons.



He was gearing up to go to World Fantasy in Madison, Wisconsin in 2005, and he kept trying to convince some of us in writing group to come, too. I wasn't too keen on the idea. It would be a big expense, and the thought of trying to go up to a bunch of strangers to sell my book was about as appealing as the thought of performing open heart surgery on myself. At the last minute, I decided to bite--three weeks before the Con, I got the plane ticket, registered and got everything set up.



The Con was an interesting experience. I roomed with Brandon, Isaac Stewart (the guy who now does maps for Brandon's books) and Dave Wolverton. I went to panels on writing, went to bookstores with Brandon and Dave, and went to parties at night. The parties are where you have a good shot at meeting People Who Matter (we'll call them PWMs for short), or at least that's what I was told. There's free beer (and soda), and lots of schmoozing. I never felt quite so out of place. You could tell there were lots of other people there trying to do the same thing I was--people would walk around the room looking at everyone's name tag, looking for the PWMs. Since I don't drink, I didn't even have some liquid courage to get me to loosen up. I managed to squeak out something to two PWMs: an editor from Del Ray, and Joshua Bilmes, Brandon's agent. Joshua was very gracious and said I could send him the first three chapters of the book I had written, and then I fled the scene to try and regroup and stop hyperventilating. (Looking back at my journal, I still get tense just remembering it. Interesting side note--that party was November 4, the five year anniversary of my first date with Denisa. Kind of a strange coincidence.)



The Con was overall a mixed bag for me. I felt like I'd learned some, made some better connections with a few people, but I felt like I'd really failed at the whole "being proactive" thing. Whenever I tried to talk to strangers, I just panicked. I couldn't think of anything really good to say, and I was sure I seemed like a complete idiot. But I got home, I got the chapters together, and I sent them off to Joshua. They were the first things I ever sent anywhere. I'd heard the horror stories: I was convinced it would take hundreds of such letters before I got any real interest from anyone.



Joshua called me on the phone less than two months later.



I was sick, lying in bed and playing World of Warcraft when Denisa walked in with my phone. "It's Joshua," she said. I stared at her. "Joshua who?" and then it clicked. I spoke with him. He liked the piece I'd sent very much, and agreed to see the next 50 pages before he made up his mind. He had some reservations about it, and wondered if they would turn into bigger problems. I'll leave off the narrative there for now, since I'm about out of time. (No worries, though--I'll take it up next time I blog about this).



The moral of the story? I met my agent by being proactive. By forcing myself to talk to people, even though I was terrified of doing it. By deciding at the last minute to follow other people's advice, even if it involved traveling halfway across the country. I've heard people talk about how they "broke in" to publishing for years, and the only thing everyone has in common is that no two stories are alike. Well, that and the fact that they were all willing to put a great deal of effort into something they felt passionate about.



But we'll get to the "great deal of effort" in a later post.