2011 Florida Writers Conference – Part 1

Tomorrow I am attending my first writers conference, namely the FWA Annual Conference.  It is held in my home town, literally minutes from my house which means I don’t get to stay in a nice hotel and have people make my bed for me every day have to incur the costs of lodging or pack, well, anything at all! 

The lack of packing has thrown me WAY off my game.  I’ve not made lists of items to pack or lists of things to do, broken down by day and I’ve not made a list of my lists.  I’m pretty useless without my lists. 

I did manage to have my business cards made and delivered on time.  I am pleased with the design and my name is spelled correctly (with all those i's and n’s and s’s, even I get confused sometimes). 

I’m not thrilled with the quality of the card stock, even though I ordered the premium quality.  They feel kinda cheap and thin, like I bought the business card stock at Office Max and printed them myself.  The good news is that I only ordered 500, so I’ll be able to re-order from a different vendor in oh, 6 years or so. 

I was thinking maybe I’ll tape a blow-pop to them to spice them up a bit, and if I’m feeling really industrious I can even include a pirated copy of Kidz Bops 19 album.   Works for birthday parties!  And besides, who doesn’t love a blow-pop?

Sometime before tomorrow I need to create memorize perfect my book pitch.  I need to sell myself and book idea to agents and publishers in 30 seconds or less.  I should probably come up with an ending to my story.  Yeah, that’d be good.  I was going all “just let the story tell itself” until I realized that potential agents want a pitch that includes the entire story. 

Maybe I should sing my book pitch.  Or set it to a 1990’s rap song and change the lyrics to tell my story.

“Now here’s a little story I’ve got to tell

about this chick and her husband she don’t know so well.

It started way back, in history

With husband/wife, another bitch and infidelity!”

Or…!

Maybe I can wear an eye-catching t-shirt that reads:

F*ck the Grammar Police!

Um, Blow-pop anyone?