The Dirty Little Secret of the NJ SCBWI

Remember when I was doing my Blogging Challenge? You’ll remember that it failed epically and that I talked about seeing Laini Taylor. In my Laini Taylor post I talked about how she pointed me toward the SCBWI for finding an agent.

  

Well I got my shit together and registered. It cost me almost but not quite $500. This was the fee for the two days and my agent one on one. Now here’s the nasty little secret about the NJ SCBWI Conference….. It’s worth every single penny!! I'm not joking. I would pay twice as much and still be happy about this conference. 

Seriously. I don’t know what I was expecting but I was fencing about it all. When I registered I got my fancy profresh nametag and it had a cute little heart sticker, so everyone would know I was a first timer. If I remember correctly there were 280 something of us attending.

Everyone was social and chatty. I made some good friends. And trust me when I say I’m a shy person and it was impossible to be shy. Everyone was friendly. I can’t say it enough, everyone is happy to see you.

For those of you who don’t know what the SCBWI conference is it’s two days of workshops about writing and/or illustrating. I got to pick my workshops and took some killer ones. I’ll give you a run down and some advice that I got from each.

First off Floyd Cooper was the opening keynote speaker. Now I’m not up with the illustrating world so I didn’t know who he was till I saw some of his paintings. Turns out I know a lot of his paintings. He also did a demo of how he paints. He starts by basing the art board with paint (or something I forget the technical name) then he takes an eraser and subtracts till he has a photo. Never heard of Floyd Cooper? I bet you’ve seen these….

Best practices for the author/agent Relationship w/ Marie Lamba and Tracey Baptiste

This one was a good start to the conference. Because I came into this weekend as a relative newbie (more on this later). I got some great advice from Tracy on querying agents, such as the fact that you should “cyber stalk” them to see if they really are a match for your manuscript and to keep a list of when you sent what to what agents.

The seven secrets of series success with Amy Cloud and Debbie Dadey

So this one was insanely cool because come on it’s Debbie Dadey! I grew up with her books. They were soooooo popular when I was a kid. It’s so inspirational to see that her first book is celebrating 25 years this year, it’s still in print and she’s still producing new books! Like holy hell! Plus it was cool to see that she has a “bible” of character info. Psst… I have one of those for mine. So I’m not that weird. Yay!!

Then it was lunchie Muncies! I was in line being all shy not planning on making conversation with anyone around me because hell I didn’t want to bother someone by being awkward. But the lady in front of me and her friend turn around and strike up a conversation with me. They were so nice and the one lady was talking about her book and it sounded so good but I being me forgot to ask if it was published because I’m so dumb sometimes.

After lunch I had a first page critique with Amy Cloud, Simon and Schuster and Meredith Mundy, Sterling Publishing. So a first page critique is where you anonymously hand in your first page and the editors give their first reactions and critiques to it. I thought it was so cool to get their feed back. I got some good stuff because I handed in my prologue that I’ve been fencing about.

What to expect When You’re expecting a novel: Between acquisition and publication with Yvonne Ventresca
This was by far one of the best workshops I went to. So I walked into the room and the nice lady from the lunch line was giving the talk. I felt so effing stupid! On the bright side I bought her book! so far it’s really good. It’s called Pandemic.

And since it just came out last month she really knew what happened between getting an agent, singing the contract and the steps between then and the book hitting the shelf. What I loved was the fact that it’s current information, not old info. I’ve had such a hard time finding information on what to expect. And I don’t want to over offer info that isn’t mine but Yvonne said that she would be putting info up on her blog so you should totally check it out. Plus she has some great posts. Once I get further into my own book expecting I’ll blog about it myself instead of high jacking Yvonne’s amazing presentation.

Best (and unfortunately sometimes worst) Beginnings for novels with Quinlan Lee
This was my last workshop on the first day  and I was sooooo tired (I woke at 5 am for the day). I was looking forward to this because the beginnings of novels are so important. In the first 3 minutes I was totally hooked. Quinlan was so energetic and it was so much fun. My favourite bit was the analogy Quinlan made. She said a bad beginning was like a bad date or a bad dog. They were perfect and she laid it out with humour and I loved it!

At the end of the first day they had a staff social where you could mingle and have a drink before dinner. I skipped the social because honestly I didn’t know what I would do other then stand about awkwardly. Plus I really didn’t want to bother the agents and editors and I hadn’t really talked with a lot of people. Plus I had an hours drive home and I was exhausted. Excuses I know but I don’t think I missed much.

The second day started off just as grand as the first day. Kathy Temeanl gave a Sate of theMarket talk. It was crazy interesting to know about what I call the “insider” information. For instance did you know that Penguin Books and Random House merged? Or that Harper Collins bought Harlequin? I didn’t either till last Sunday. It was a really interesting report because I found out that the publishing industry as a whole is growing. Apparently the last five or so years has been a massive struggle for the publishing industry. It gives me hope to know that the industry is picking up, it means I’ll have a better chance of getting published! Wooo!! Also Kathy has the whole lecture on her blog, so you should hop on over and check it out.

After the state of the market speech it was time for my agent one on one with Sarah LaPolla. Nervous is an understatement for what I felt. I had been stealing myself all week for her to be like “well it’s a good concept but your writing isn’t strong enough to support the plot.” I had dressed in my one pair of professional pants and made sure I looked like an author and went for it.

It was actually an eye opening fifteen minutes. Now I’ll be honest that my understanding of the YA genre was a bit sketchy before the weekend. And one of the things Sarah said was that the main characters were going to be too old to classify it as YA. She said it would make a decent adult fantasy book. But also the fact if I did decide to go that way then it would be really tough because of the competition and the fact that it’s a male dominated genre, but that she wanted to see a strong female break into the genre.

I left feeling a lot better then I had been prepared to feel. I had opted not to take a workshop the first block since I would be missing the beginning of it and didn’t want to walk in fifteen minutes into it. So I grabbed a coffee sat down and text everyone to gush over the fact that I was doing something right!

My next workshop was another first page critique with Julie Matysik, Sky Pony Press and Carter Hasegawa, Candlewick. They gave me some good pointers like the fact that I could cut out the first four paragraphs and get right to the good stuff. Taking their idea a step further I decided to start a bit further in and weave the world building in there. Super helpful shit went on there!

The Dialogue Dilemma with Kami Kinard

When I had signed up for this workshop I took it because it was the only one that appealed to me in that last block. It turned out to be a really good workshop. I learned the low down on Said. And the fact that most editors like to see said instead of another word or lots of adverbs. Plus obviously actions speak louder than words so you could just have a character roll their eyes in response instead of saying something. So this workshop turned out to be really good.

The Dialogue Dilemma was my last workshop for the conference. Boo. But there was still lunch and the closing keynot. I was actually nervous about going to lunch because one of the only tables left open when I signed up was for Sarah’s table. So I almost skipped lunch, but I was hungry and I decided I wouldn’t sit close to Sarah.

Well turns out there was only one person between Sarah and I. I started lunch off being quiet and paid attention to the conversation. Then at one point the people on my left started a conversation separate from the people on my right and I didn’t know which way to go so I just awkwardly sat there till one of the women pulled me into conversation. Like I said everyone at the conference was nice. Then we got on the topic of the YA genre and how everyone else at the table was had to go without appropriate teen books. And I was like well I can’t complain that way because I was essentially the target age when the YA genre boomed. When I said I was only 23 Sarah was impressed. She said she thought I was older because my writing was mature. I’m not going to lie I almost started crying at lunch.
I had gone into the whole weekend not thinking that my writing would even stack up to everyone else there. And to hear and editor say that I was good at what I did made the conference. One of the women at the conference who had been in talks with Sarah about being represented pointed out to me that Sarah doesn’t have to compliment people, that she meant what she said because she’s not hear to make friends or smooze up to the authors. It was such a reassurance to know that I’m not a horrible writer.

The closing keynote speaker was Rachael Vail. She was absolutely fantastic and inspiring. She was the perfect way to end such a good weekend.

But now I’ve got lots of work to do. If I’m going to make it in the adult fantasy genre I’m stepping my game up. No holding back. I’m going to write epic shit. So I’ve made myself an office in the sunroom and I’m starting to get up earlier to write for a few hours in the morning. I want to finish my manuscript by the end of summer and have an agent by my birthday. No more being a pansy! I’m going hardcore! So thank you NJ SCBWI and Sarah LaPolla for helping me make up my mind on what genre I’m writing!

Cheers,