Kristin Nelson

Blue pencil and pitch

/ Melanie Marttila / 6 Comments

After breakfast and the keynote on Sunday morning, I had signed up for a blue pencil session with Jim C. Hines and a pitch session with Nephele Tempest, back to back. Needless to say, I was a bundle of nerves.

How the blue pencil went

After Jim’s wonderful keynote the evening before, I was a bit worried at the thought of sitting down with him. Not that I thought that he would tell me my writing sucked, but I worried he might be too gentle with me.

I needed help.

After the reception my first page received at SiWC idol, I really wanted to fix my opening.

So I explained my concerns and Jim got right to business. He had a few excellent suggestions, some of which I’d already suspected, and set me on the path of a few more effective ways to get my character across. He asked a few insightful questions, and over all I thought he did a lovely job.

Afterward, he asked me if he’d been of any help to me.

What a sweetie.

I was so pleased to have met him, even under such time constraints.

How the pitch went

I’d pitched Initiate of Stone last year at the Algonkian Conference I attended. Though I received the interest of an editor from Penguin, I had to delay submitting anything to him because I had some work to finish. Though he agreed that he’d rather see a novel made its best through editing and revision, I believe I took too long.

When I had signed up for Surrey, I was able to book one blue pencil and one pitch session.  The blue pencil was with Jim C. Hines. The pitch was with Kristin Nelson. If time allowed, I would be able to book additional appointments on site.

I had researched the agents in attendance and decided that I would make every attempt to see Nephele Tempest, Pam Hylckama Vlieg, and Rachel Coyne, if time allowed. They all handled fantasy, which is what I was there to give them.

As I mentioned in a past post, Kristin Nelson had to cancel when her flight from Colorado was cancelled due to weather. Pam Hylckama Vlieg was ill and unable to make it.

I was fortunate enough to meet Rachel Coyne on the first day. She was friendly and kind, and encouraged me to book an appointment. When it came time for me to do so, however, Rachel was booked solid and the only time I could book with Nephele Tempest was Sunday morning, back to back with my blue pencil session.

Since last year, I’d taken a course with Marcy Kennedy on loglines, taglines, and pitches. I’d also done some research on the internet and learned a few things from Adrienne Kerr’s query session.  My pitch was a work in progress, and though I’d brought my computer to work on it, I wasn’t able to print my documents. I wasn’t about to lug my lap top around so I could read from it, either.

Outside my room, I didn’t have consistent wi-fi, and so I couldn’t even copy the file into Dropbox and open it on my phone.

So I’d spent my breakfast recreating my pitch from memory.

Things went well, and Nephele asked to see my first three chapters.

They’re with her now. We’ll see how things go.

All I can say is eeeeeeeeeee!

More tomorrow, folks. Goodnight for now. The eighth Doctor calls 😉

First, a few notes

/ Melanie Marttila
Flight from Vancouver to Toronto

Flight from Vancouver to Toronto (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

My flight was seven hours.  I had to be at the airport (a 20 minute drive) an hour ahead of time, fly to Toronto and have a brief layover before boarding my connecting flight to Vancouver.  There’s a three hour time difference between Ontario and BC.

Having arrived in Vancouver, I had to then make my way to Surrey.  I asked hour much it would be for a shuttle.  Even the flat rate was more than I was prepared to spend.

So I back-tracked, bought a train ticket, and rode the sky train for another hour and a half.

At the terminus station, I still had to catch a taxi to get to the hotel.

So, altogether, I spent about ten hours in transit and though it was only four-ish when I got here, I was done.

I checked in, got to my room, and discovered something:

I had to pay for internet access, and I could only pay for either in-room or meeting room access.  I opted for room access, hoping that my smart(-er than me) phone would have enough connectivity to tweet.

After supper and a bath, I went to bed, about eleven pm Pacific, but about two am Eastern time.

I woke up at 3 am.

Though I did my best, I only managed to send one tweet before my phone bogged down altogether.  I haven’t been able to send or receive much of anything since.

Also, Kristin Nelson was unable to attend, her flight from Colorado having been cancelled due to the weather.

I dealt with these small disappointments and have since had an absolute blast (so far).  Will be posting the day’s sessions and my notes as I go, but these will likely be at least a day late.

The leave begins

/ Melanie Marttila / 12 Comments

I’m going to be a bit scarce, or scarcer that I have been recently.

I have my time off and I’m going to use it to catch up on a few projects/straighten out my head.

What’s up:

It’s taken much longer than I intended, but I am coming down to the final, final, FINAL revision of Initiate of Stone before I send her off to the editor who expressed interest last year and to a few select beta readers.  I’m going to be revising my pitch/query and start targeting Agents and small publishers.

I’ll be attending the Surrey International Writers’ Conference from October 25-7, and I have a pitch session booked with the wonderful Kristin Nelson (squee!)  I’m very excited, but after putting IoS to bed (for now) I will likely spend the next week prepping for SiWC.  I’m going to be reviewing my idea files for what I want to work on next.

While I wait to hear back from editors/agents/publishers about IoS, I’m going to be starting on/returning to other novel-length projects like Gerod and the Lions.

Come November, though, I’m going to be tackling another project for NaNoWriMo (!)  I only have until the 19th off, but I’m thinking it’s time to get something else up and out there.  This may be the idea file project I choose to prep for SiWC.

So that’s pretty much my writing ambitions.

I have said that I would participate in Khara House’s October Submit-o-Rama, and even participated in Kasie Whitener’s Just Write 2013 challenge for the purpose, but I’m not going to go out of my way to get a pile of short stories submitted.

If it happens, it happens.  I have some markets targeted, but I want to focus on my novels.  That’s where I need to be.

On a more personal note, I’m going to be trying to work in a little more physical activity.  I’ve gained weight just in the six weeks since I quit smoking.  It’s not good.  The clothes are tight.  And I haven’t been as faithful with implementing new habits as I was with changing the old.  I need something that will work with my life when I go back to the day-job.  This bears some thought.

I have no doubt that when I do go back, things will be as hectic as ever, so the new fitness routine has to be something that will let me get the sleep I need, get all the housework and daily chores done, and still accommodate work and writing.  And then there’s all that TV I like to watch 😛

I need to finish off my household clean-up (which stalled in September) and try to get the gardens into some kind of order before the snow falls.  I have a few projects I’d like to get to as well: 2 ceiling fans to install, my office door to strip and refinish, and one of our external doors to repaint.  I’m also looking at some storage fixes, cabinets for the bedroom and bathroom, and a new bookshelf for my office.

These last I’m not going to rush, since I think I’ll have enough with my trip to Surrey, another shortish trip to visit a friend in southern Ontario, and all the writing I want to do.

And then there’s Writerly Goodness.  I’m thinking it’s time for a face-lift, and maybe a new

English: Epic Win title card.

English: Epic Win title card. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

name.  My domain will remain the same, but I’m thinking that a more appropriate name might be Totally Epic, or Epic Win (for my interest in epic fantasy).

I could go with something more general because I’m not just about the epic fantasy, I have urban fantasy, YA and MG, science fiction, and even some cross-over type novels in my idea file.  Plus I still write poetry and short stories, some of which are not speculative at all.

How about Improbable Possibilities (one definition of SF), or Speculations on Fiction?  There are some old suggestions: Phigment’s (Phigment is an imaginary dragon—the site would belong to her), or MelanieM/Millennium.  This last was from a friend who realized saying MelanieM sounds an awful lot like millennium.  Does something else present itself to you as clever?  I think I might just put a poll in my post this week 😉

A number of recent writer interviews have been delayed, perhaps indefinitely, so I probably won’t be posting much more than once a week (outside of SiWC, which I hope to blog and maybe even Twitter).  If I have nothing to offer by way of updates, I may not post at all in any given week.

Just to let you know.  I’m still here, but I’m going to be trying to shift my focus away from the interwebz for a bit and get back to the reason I started this whole platform-building gig in the first place—my writing.

I’ve been seeking balance for some time.  Maybe I’ll find it in the next five weeks?  Who knows?

Thanks for your patronage, and for your patience.