Summer ILC, Weeks 2 & 3: PNWA prep

These past two weeks I’ve been preparing for, as my friend and fellow novelist Heather over at Things I’ve Killed calls it, “the electric hurricane vortex that is PNWA.”

Things I accomplished:
– Met up with Heather on Tuesday and got a lot of my questions answered. She assured me that even though it’s stressful, all the prep work I’m doing is putting me in a very good position. She gave me a ton of great advice as I sipped my red tea.

– Signed up for Camp NaNoWriMo to finish the last chunk of my revision on Frozen Story. I feel sorry for my campmates, since I’ve only written 101 new words. But I content myself with the fact that I’ve still been doing a ton of work on this ILC, it’s just not obvious to anyone but me.

– Wrote a bio and artist’s statement, then updated my profiles on AWP, PNWA, and SCBWI.

– Created a spreadsheet for the conference with the basic info of the agents and editors in my field. (Thanks again, Heather!)


Things I learned:
– There are five agents seeking Middle Grade books in the pitch block I signed up for. Sweet!

– The publishing industry seems to be dominated by ladies. Awesome.

– In 21st-century networking, no one cares if you don’t have business cards, but they do care if you’re not on twitter. So I finally joined. @bethannacook

– Bring snacks. Bring a lot of snacks.