Preaching in the Dark - a DFWcon Epiphany

Ah, you guys. What can I say about DFWcon that I haven't already said?  It's the highlight of my year, the filling of my well, the thing that convinces me that yes, I can and should do all those other, scarier things.

But here is a thought that might be relevant to you, whether or not you went to the conference, whether or not you're even a writer.

See, I did a great class with Laura Maisano on Saturday, called Prose P90X.  It went swimmingly - we filled up the whole room, and got loads of compliments. We were a great team!

Look at all those shining faces!

But then I had to rush off to do a solo class, The Comma Sutra, in a different part of the building.  It was on the main stage of the theater - big lights, black curtains, the whole nine yards.  I was flattered they booked me there - obviously the Powers That Be expected that I could fill a significant chunk of the seats.

Here's the thing, though: because the class started exactly when extra pitch sessions went on sale, I didn't get nearly that kind of turnout.  When it came time to start, there were only maybe twenty people scattered through that huge, cavernous room.  More than that, the bright stage lights meant I couldn't see them, and the distance meant that unless they hollered right at me, I couldn't hear them either.  It felt like teaching a class at the bottom of an empty swimming pool at midnight.

Meanwhile, photographic evidence suggests that it LOOKED
like some kind of xenopornographic TED talk.
(Big thanks to Amber Draeger for the photos!)

That was a really hard thing.  My entire schtick relies on being able to see people's faces, to hear when they laugh and notice when they're confused or annoyed or distracted.  (This is one reason I'm comparatively crap at social media - my super-empathy powers don't work when there's an Internet between your face and mine.)  And let me tell you - it is SUPER awkward telling grammatically-instructive alien sex jokes when all you hear is silence.

But I kept at it, and kept soliciting questions, and started getting substantial answers, so I knew there were at least a few people who were out there and wanted to talk to me. By the time we finished, it had stopped being a sermon and become a true discussion, which is what I love best.

Well, imagine my surprise when I finished and stepped aside, and saw that the room had filled up.  People must have been trickling in during that hour, coming in ones and twos as they finished buying their extra pitch sessions and headed up to catch the class.  I don't know how many were there at the end, but I got over sixty names on my email sheets - and that's just the ones who cared enough to stand in line and sign up to get the PDF slides.

Image blurred to protect their identities.

And of course, the happy denouement: I got some great compliments on the class, and found wonderful mentions of it on Twitter. I even got this amazing email, which has been lighting up my life for three days straight now:

I'm sorry, but this morning I didn't know who you were.

Then you showed up on a panel and made some great comments.

Then I saw you at lunch and you were having SUCH a great time.

So when I checked my after-lunch class selections and saw your name, I altered my initial choice to take in P90X.

Wow... Great information, delivered fast and entertainingly.

So here I am in the balcony, listening to Comma Sutra. (Excellent!) But mostly I'm wondering: who the Hell are you and where did you come from? You're a freak of nature, and we need more.

Thanks for sharing yourself. You make it a better - and smarter - world.

And thanks for making my conference!

And maybe this doesn't make for a riveting anecdote, but like... that hour summed up my entire year to date.  I've spent so much time out and about over the past few months, striving like the dickens to be seen and get known. It's fun and I genuinely love doing it - being out in the real world with real people lights me up like nothing else! - but there are so many nights when I flop into a Motel 6 bed, utterly spent, and stare up into the darkness wondering what the hell I'm playing at. When you're promoting yourself, you're not really helping other people, and not really creating anything new, either - you're just trying to shine a spotlight on something you've already done, which people may or may not even notice, let alone care about. And most of the time, you can't tell if it's working.

And I know that's not just me, and not just book-promotion. Every facet of writing is like that sometimes. Shoot, LIFE is like that sometimes.  My mom said that about raising kids - you know, how you spend your whole entire day exhausting yourself, and at the end of it, you can't see that you've accomplished anything, because the house and the kids and your life look exactly like they did when you got up that morning.  My dad would say the same thing about his job, too: how he was so happy to mow the lawn on the weekend, because it was a measurable thing with a definable, visible, guaranteed result - not at all like the nebulous phone calls and vague paper-pushing that made up the rest of the week.

The red days are my out-of-town days - which are usually interspersed with oh-god-I'm-wasting-my-life nights.

So I guess what I'm saying, to myself as much as to you-all, is that at some point, we're all just preaching in the dark. It's a hard thing to do - to stick to your guns, to resist the urge to stop and check for approval, to trust that what you're doing is noticed and needed (or will be), even when nobody is there to tell you so.  It requires you to be truly self-sustaining, which is so, so much harder than it sounds.

But I hope you'll keep at it, whatever 'it' may be - and I believe that if you do it well enough, for long enough, you will eventually start getting those pingbacks, seeing the fruits of your labor.  Maybe you'll fill up the metaphorical room, and maybe you won't - but statistically speaking, there is almost-certainly somebody out there who's waiting to hear EXACTLY what you have to say... and you can't know that until and unless you have the courage to stay the course and say it.

All right - sermon over.  Go forth and preach, y'all - and if you have time, holler some encouragement to the people in your life who are doing likewise. Yours might be the only voice they can hear.

Five Hot Tips For Rocking DFWcon

It's almost here!  Christmas-Hogwarts-Burning-Man-Woodstock-carnival-prom is almost upon us!  (We call it the DFW Writers Conference for short.)  And this year, I've suckered not one but TWO amazing writers into dropping out of the con circuit to join us - and you better believe I'm out to show them a good time.

Heck, I'm out to show EVERYbody a good time - because let's face it, writing conferences are tough.  You don't want to just sit in the back and be all

But at the same time, you can't exactly roll up and holler

(Well, you can, but you REALLY have to play it just right.)

So let's talk about how to win the weekend! Here for your edification are five hot tips for rocking DFWcon.

Great!, I hear you say. But why should we listen to you? 

So glad you asked!

1. Got my agent, Jennie Goloboy, at DFWcon 2012
2. Joined the conference committee for DFWcon 2013
3. Became editor / arch-machinator for DFWcon 2014
4. Now a super-cool published author and sort-of-professional con-goer
5. Natural 20 charisma

Got it?  Good.  Now here's how to have a phenomenal weekend.

...but we can fix that!

1. Do your homework.

Did you look at the genre matrix?  Good!  Did you go to the agent's website and read up on them? Great! But don't stop there. That's basic stuff. You're not here to be basic. Make this a movie-montage-Googling session. Go find some recent interviews they've done. Check out their Twitter. See if they have any clients whose work you know. If you want that agent to be interested in you, start by being interested in them! 

INTERESTED, dammit!

2. Perfect your pitch.

Think of it like trying to convince a friend to go see this really cool movie. Are you going to talk for ten minutes straight? No. Are you going to dump in a whole load of names and places? No. You're going to keep it short, sweet, and awesome - aim for about a minute, max, before you come up for air. 

"It's about this doctor guy who comes home one day to find that someone's broken into the house and killed his wife - and now the cops think HE did it.  So he's on the run from the authorities and simultaneously looking for the killer... and then he finds out that the hit was meant for HIM. He was the one who first blew the whistle on a lucrative new drug that actually turned out to cause liver damage. Now big pharma wants him dead, and if he doesn't stop them, they're going to push the drug through and potentially kill thousands of people.  It's a little bit Count of Monte Cristo and a whole lot of Bourne Identity, with less amnesia and more prosthetic arms. You're gonna love it."

The box office certainly did.

(Bonus points if you start with something personalized that you learned in step #1, and end with a question that isn't "do you want it, huh, do ya, do ya?"  "Thanks so much for meeting with me, Mr. Spielberg - I know you're really on the lookout for a new take on the whole alien-invasion thing, and since you're also into middle-grade fiction, I think I have something that would be right up your alley. It's called 'E.T.', and...")

Remember: your pitch session is not a 60-second monologue. It's a 12-minute conversation. Your pitch is only the beginning of that conversation - so make it a good one!

3. Cultivate your expertise

This is especially true if you don't know many people at the con.  Are you commuting there?  Maybe clean out your car so you can offer your new out-of-town friends a lift to dinner. Are you a black-belt Googler?  Consider printing out extra info on all the agents in your genre, so you can help other con-goers who don't know who to talk to. Foodie? Look up all the best restaurants nearby and be ready to recommend. Heck, you can make friends just by offering to let people practice their pitch on you and giving them good feedback!  Bottom line: think about what kind of problem-solver you want to be, and then get out there and get known.

NB: If you are an actual black belt, you may need to diversify your skill-set.

4. Collect touchpoints, not targets

In other words, don't pitch to anything that moves. Really. Yes, you have a limited amount of face-time, and yes, you want to get the most bang for your buck out of the weekend, but con-going is like dating - hustling people into the sack rarely works. This a game of multiple touches. Go to the agent's class. Say hi in the hallway. Chat at the cocktail party. Talk up somebody else's work. If the weekend's over and you never got to pitch to them?  GREAT. 

No, really.  That is great - because ANY interaction you have with an agent this weekend is query-letter gold.  Picture opening your email thusly: "Ms. Maisano - I so enjoyed taking your Prose P90X class at DFWcon last month. It was hugely helpful, and now that I've had a chance to sit down and apply those ideas, I wanted to query you about my novel. It's a 70,000-word YA sci-fi adventure called Bacne to the Future, and..." 

You ARE coming to class, right...?

RIGHT AWAY, you shoot to the top of her inbox. RIGHT AWAY, you are flagged as a person who made a serious investment in your writing career (and who wanted to query her, specifically - not just blanket the Internet with a form letter.)

5. Make friends

Cheesy, but true. Rachel Swirsky said something at CONvergence earlier this month, which I thought was so wise:  "Cultivate lateral and downward connections, not just upward ones. You never know where someone will end up, and people have vastly different resources."  Which was followed by this keeper from Lee Harris:  "Publishing, like any business, is all about relationships... and you can't fabricate relationships."

So if you end up sitting next to Rachael Acks, say hi - she's a fabulous writer and a geologist by trade, and who better to talk to for that big-oil thriller you keep meaning to write?  If you see Mark Finn in the hall, tighten your sphincters before you bend his ear - he will make you laugh 'til you leak, and he knows more about Robert E. Howard, indie-publishing, and master-class party-schmoozing than anyone should. Larry Enmon is retired Secret Service. Taylor Koleber is an LDS missionary who speaks Haitian Creole. Michelle O'Neal works as a forensic chemist at the local medical examiner's office (she can tell you where ALL the bodies were buried, and when and for how long.)  I could go on, but you get the idea: there are going to be 300+ phenomenal people there this weekend, at every stage of their writing careers. Don't be so fixated on the agents that you forget to look around and notice the social gold mine all around you!

It's actually 37% gold and 63% sweaty, unfettered enthusiasm - you're gonna love it!

Anyway, last thought, lovelies: if you're nervous, that's okay. It's a big deal. But no matter what you do, you're going to come out of this weekend a winner: you will know more going out than you did coming in, and have shown to everyone who claps eyes on you that you are NOT a person who wears your pants on your head, but a dedicated writer making a commitment to your career.  And if you need any reassurance on that point, come find me - I'll see you there!

Prose, Panties, and DFWcon Schedule!

Hey, Internetizens - this one's going to be quick and dirty, because I'm sitting in a departure lounge awaiting a midnight flight back to DFW, and absolutely will not have a brain left to post with by the time I get home.

But post I must, because the DFW Writers Conference cometh - and I am SO STOKED to go!

I'll spare you the whole schpiel, but if you're just now tuning in, DFWcon is where I met my agent, lo these many moons ago (not to mention my whole writers workshop), and where my home and heart will always be.  This year, I can only be there for Saturday, but the organizers have very-kindly obliged my request to take it to the limit all day long.  Look at this line-up!  LOOK AT IT.

Secrets of Success
9:45 to 10:45AM, Saturday
Session 1: Kevin J. Anderson, Rosemary Clement Moore, Charlaine Harris, Jenny Martin, Julie Murphy, Me Ra Koh, Tex Thompson

What’s their secret? How did these traditionally published authors achieve their objectives, cross that threshold and get their writing career started? And what have they done since to build on that success? The authors will share their experiences and helpful tips and field questions from the audience.

Prose P90X
1:00-2:00PM, Saturday
Laura Maisano, Anaiah Press
with Tex Thompson
NOTE: this class was previously listed as 'Intro to Style'
Do your sentences sag? Does your description drag? Or is your manuscript simply struggling to lose those last 5,000 words? Never fear! Veteran editor Laura Maisano and relentless red-pen-thusiast Tex Thompson are teaming up to help you trim and tone your prose in a fearless, fun session that’s guaranteed to leave your work leaner, cleaner, and meaner than ever before. Come learn how to take your writing style from flab to fab!

The Comma Sutra : A Better-Punctuation Guide to Spicing Up Your Text Life
2:15-3:30PM, Saturday
Tex Thompson

Does your writing lack a certain… variety?  Does your manuscript suffer from premature exclamations, heavy or abnormally frequent periods, or have difficulty maintaining even a semi-colon?   Don’t suffer in silence!   You too can enjoy the satisfaction and self-confidence that comes with knowing how to please your critique partner.   In this class, we’ll practice the ins and outs of good punctuation (and yes, it WILL be raunchy.)  Join us, won’t you, as we embark on a journey of true textual healing.

Read and Critique, DFW Writers Workshop Style - pre-registration required
4:15-5:45PM, Saturday
Tex Thompson, David Goodner

One great way to hone your craft is to read your work in front of a critique group. The DFW Writers Workshop has been doing just that since 1977, and has perfected its system over the years. Bring your current work in progress, read it in front of a group and receive critique from published authors.


Seriously, guys.  I know over-the-top excitement is kind of my jam, but I am unbelievably stoked to get to collaborate on a presentation with bitextual author/editor wonder-wizard Laura Maisano, and get to co-workshop with future bigger-than-Jesus picture-book rock-star David Goodner, and get to exchange oxygen within breathing-distance of Charlaine Harris AND Kevin J Anderson.  Binaca, don't fail me now!

So if you're going - set your schedule!  If you're not going - console yourself as best you can! And if you're on the fence - boy, you better hustle up and get yourself a ticket tout-de-suite, cuz we've only got a few left, and this year's conference is going to be off ALL of the chains.  See you there!

Prose and DFWcons

All right, you guys.  Real talk.  These last few months have been the most stressful, challenging, miserable months since... pretty much ever.  And now that I'm finally out from under it, I can tell you the tale.

See, I was going like gangbusters trying to get my second book written, and teach a night course, and help with DFWcon, and get two classes prepped for the aforesaid con.   Everything came to a head last week: book was due on Monday, programs/schedules had to be finalized by Tuesday, the last conference meeting and bag-stuffing was Wednesday, night course finished on Thursday, and Friday found me crying discreetly at the pre-con mixer because I was supposed to teach a class the next day and wasn't even half ready for it.  At one point, I was up for 36 hours straight.  It was ruinous, absolutely insane, and I never, ever want to be that crunched ever again.

HOWEVER.

Let me tell you what the victory lap looked like.  Let me tell you how completely worth it all that agony was.  Let me tell you what a fantastic time I had, and how many super-awesome people I met, and how many (now former) total strangers came up to me and said, "Oh my God. Your class was amazing.  My mind – you blew it.  I seriously can't even deal with your realness."  

(And if any of y'all from the "Punching Up Your Prose" class are reading this, look at that last paragraph again.  Yeah, it's one of those!)

This was me.  This was what I did.

So let me write this real quick and sloppily, before the glitter wears off and I start second-guessing it.  Are you ready, world?  Here it is:  this what I just did is without question what I was put on this earth to do.  I want to write awesome books, and I want to help other people write awesome books.  That's it.  That is my talent.  That is the goal.

So here's how it's going to happen.

1.  Going to send the two class presentations to all the awesome folks who signed up for them.  That's job #1.

2.  Going to resurrect this blog here, do more fun cool stuff.  I definitely want to do more GrammatiCats (the posts take so much longer to write than you would think, but maybe we can run them once or twice a month).  I also want to start showcasing other authors – because man, I know so many truly first-rate fictioneers, and the world desperately needs to pick up what they're throwing down.

3.  Going to work on doing more classes.  Maybe online, maybe in person, probably both.  (Y'all holler at me if you have any genius ideas or secret leads on this front.)  Not sure yet how that will shake out, but I'll tell you this right now: I am not waiting for DFWcon 2015 to do this again. 

And whether I blew your mind in the last 3 days or have been sporadically ignoring you for the last 3 months: if you're reading this right now, please know that I am so, so grateful to know you and have you in my posse.  I will never know how I got lucky enough to have this life, but I intend to make really damn sure the world is better off because of it.

People are all like, "oh, it's okay, don't cry."  No.  This is DFWcon.  If you're not crying, you're not trying.

DFWcon: The Clock Strikes Thirteen

Yep, you read that right.  In thirteen hours, regular registration for DFWcon ends, and baby Toby will officially belong to the Goblin King.

Register, people.  For yourself.  For your writing career.  For David Bowie.

I saw my baby, trying hard as babe could try.  What could I do?

Conferences and Conventions and Human Contact, Oh Boy!

Merry Monday, Internetizens!  The world is an especially bright and lovely place today (as it tends to be when you are backed by industrial-strength doses of ibuprofen and a healthy rage to live.) 

Three con-ish things:

1.  I've just now uploaded the preliminary schedule and class descriptions for DFWcon 2014 (scroll down there on the main page - you'll see three links).  If you are a writer who might be able to make it out to our neck of the woods in May, please check it out - this conference is my first love, and the literal foundation of all my success to date, and I can't recommend it highly enough.  You will hear me gushing more about it soon.

2.  A quick word to my fellow white people - more specifically, my fellow con-going, SFF-loving white people.  You know how at conventions, there tends to be a whole lot of ... you know, us?  Does it ever make you feel kinda weird to live in a city that is fully 50% non-white (as I do here in Dallas), and yet walking into the local convention hall is like entering a melanin clean-room? 

"Maybe", you might say, "but this isn't the first time I've heard about it, and I'm kind of tired of having to feel bad because I happen to turn pink in the bathtub."

 Well, *I* would submit that there is no need to feel anything but powerful, enthusiastic, and motivated - because we-the-converted are the carriers of the torch, the keepers of the faith.  We veteran con-goers KNOW how fun and cool and awesome a good con can be - and so we are uniquely equipped to help bring that joy to people who might otherwise miss out.  And (here's the part that's got me jazzed this morning): you can help diversify the con-going world just by doing what you normally would anyway.

"What?" you may ask.  "Which part?  Curating my collection of autographed Timothy Zahn novels?  Filling my life-sized TARDIS with handcrafted plush tribbles for my Dr. Who / Star Trek fanfic re-enaction group?"

Basically, yes!  Con or Bust is an organization dedicated to helping fans of color attend conventions - and all you have to do to support them is to buy from their auctions.  They have some amazing primo stuff, too - books, crafts, jewelry - autographed, limited-edition, out-of-print - and writers, sit up and pay attention!  They're auctioning off critiques from Tor editors, Hugo winners, serious heavy-hitting industry pros.  So if you want to score some amazing goods AND help bring new fans into the fold, get over there and shop your heart out.  (But do it fast - it's ending this Sunday the 23rd!)

3.  Okay, I guess that second thing was not as quick as I thought.  I'll make this third one brief:  I'm going to ConDFW this weekend, and it would be my life's delight to see you there!


We have many different beliefs, but today we must put them aside and unite. Gryffindor and Slytherin! Jedi and Sith! Jack Nicholson Joker and Heath Ledger Joker! This is our time to take what's ours... for tonight we dine in hell!

And the Winner Is...

Okay, random.org has been down for 14 hours now, and I can't stand the suspense anymore.  So, courtesy of randomnumbergenerator.com, we have...

Febe Moss, come on down!  (Email me and let me know where Amazon can find you - soon, all the sentence-structuring secrets of the cosmos will be yours!)

HUGE thanks to all you guys who participated in this humble little project.  This has been hugely helpful and heartening, and I can't wait to start rolling out your awesome ideas. (I was surprised at how many people slipped me wonderful suggestions behind the scenes - maybe next time I should skip the prize and just ask y'all to wring your brains out on command!) 

Also, while we're conjugating "yay" and "huzzah", give a huge one to David Cambron - you know, the guy with all those naked bunnies?  Yeah, he's just signed papers with Inklings Literary Agency, but if you hurry and go right now, you MAY be able to say that you knew him before he was cool.  (This probably means I'll have to quit bullying him in the parking lot at our writers workshop, though.  Dang.)

Lastly, keep your eye on www.dfwcon.org.  Yes, it's the blog for the DFW Writers' Conference, but you don't need to be a local conference-goer to get good mileage out of it: we're going to be running weekly features on broader writing topics, and would really love to have input from writers of all types and stripes.  It's a quality operation.  And I'm not just saying that because they made me the editor.

--Hey, who wants to play Drink the Beer? 
--Right here.
--You win!
--All right, what do I win?
--Another beer!

Ten Things I Learned From DFWcon 2013

1.  There are more terrific people in the world than you can handle knowing.  

2.  David Corbett can bring new meaning to your life, and Michael Capuzzo has friends who can end it.

3. Quality floats.  Quality makes heads turn.  Your audience can smell laziness, ignorance, and slapdashery like sun-ripened mayonnaise.

4.  Entropy has a net positive effect on tres leches cake.

5.  Until we can be in literally seven places at once, there will never be enough time to do everything we want to do. 

6. Heaven is other people.  Hell is figuring out how to talk to them.

7. On Loop 820, as in life, the road to success is choked with traffic and permanently under construction, and it takes f***ing forever to get somewhere.  Perseverance is essential.

8. High school never ends.

9. Being complimented is good, but being helpful is GREAT.

10.  Anonymous friends are everywhere. Even in the toilet.

And actually, if I can loop the Blogging A to Z Challenge in here for a second, just one more:

11.  It's not all about you.  And that is indisputably a good thing.

That's the big one for me personally.  My own headspace is full of insecurities and inadequacies and the nasty nibbling brain-hamsters of doubt.  I freaking know this (I've lived in it for three decades now!)  And yet I'm always surprised at how fun and interesting and and alive and powerful I feel when I link up with other people - especially ones who are all pulling in the same general direction I am - and take the time to say, "gosh, you sure are neat - what's big in your world right now?"

To recap: I spent the entire month of April beating myself into the ground to produce daily blog content, and the first week of May punching myself in the face to get ready for a writing conference.  There are plenty of things I did poorly or not at all.  There is a veritable pantload of things I want to do differently next time.  But I've never had less sleep or more fun, and I am so, so excited to set my sights on the next round of self-inflicted accomplishments.

In the meantime: bed, chores, friends.  I got old ones to catch up with and new ones to study up on, and that is a GREAT problem to have.


I got 99 problems, but a pitch ain't one.

From Blogging to Hot-Dogging

What a month, you guys.  I can't believe I ate blogged the whole thing.  And next week, I'm gonna sit down and write a really good navelgazing post about the merciless month-long thrill that was the A to Z Blogging Challenge.

Right now, though, the DFW Writers Conference is happening this very weekend, and I am 100% booked until then!  I'm doing this class, see, and I am so freakin' stoked about it:

It's going to be educatastrophic!  You know, in a good way.

Anyway, I'm all nostalgic just now, because at this time last year, I was busy barfing on my shoes just thinking about going to my first-ever conference and pitching to actual agents.  If you're going to this or some other great literary event and feel your penny loafers are likewise in imminent danger of meeting your lunch, take solace and learn from my mistakes!  Here are a select few of my bloggy baby pictures posts from DFWcon 2012:

Cue Training Montage - in which the reality of the upcoming event sinks in, and "Eye of the Tiger" starts playing in the background.

DFWcon 1: New Neighbors - or, how writers' conferences are basically Hogwarts Disneyland Woodstock carnival-prom (for book nerds), and why that is so important.

DFWcon 2: Lessons - the do's and don'ts and remember-for-next-times

The Dry Heaves of Destiny - in which, almost three months after the conference, I finally send my manuscript to the Agent of My Dreams

By the Power of the Crimson Couch... - the climactic moment, almost four months after I had originally pitched to her at DFWcon 2012

So there you have it, happy people: do your homework, eat your Wheaties, and remember that Mr. Rogers likes you just the way you are.  It's going to be a grand time!

I feel good.  I feel great.  I feel wonderful.  I feel good.  I feel great.  I feel wonderful.

An Impending Burst of Gramma' Radiation

As some of you guys already know, I have the singular honor of presenting a class at this year's DFW Writer's Conference.  It's called "No Mustard on Your Shirt: Spill-Proofing Your Grammar and Style."

Here's the description:

It's a truth every interviewee knows:  there's nothing more tragic than missing out on your dream job because the interviewer can't see past the stain on your collar.  In this class, we'll tackle the grammar and style mistakes that even experienced writers make, and highlight winning strategies for scrubbing them out of your manuscript.  Don't give your reader even one easy reason to toss your work aside: come learn how to put the "pro" in your prose!

(And now a brief pause for pimping: the conference is going to be PHENOMENAL.  I am so pumped about the class line-up this year, and they've got enough agents and editors to choke a horse.  Get it on this quick if you want to go: regular registration ends on Thursday!)

Anyway, in anticipation of the conference, and in tandem with this year's Blogging from A to Z Challenge, I'm doing something I'll probably regret.  Each day in the month of April (Sundays excluded), I'm going to write about a different grammar issue and post it here.

"Tex, you mad fool!" you may exclaim.  "You'll never make it!"

Possibly not.  But I'm going to try!

"Well, good luck, I guess," you might concede.  "But all that wittering on about commas and prepositions - isn't it going to be ruinously boring?"

I'll let you be the judge of that...

Am I jumping the gun, Baldrick, or are the words "I have a cunning plan" marching with ill-deserved confidence in the direction of this conversation?

DFWCON 3: The Alliance

You know, I can distinctly remember reading about film and TV writers being forced to work through committee and even sometimes getting kicked off of their own projects, and thinking, "Man, I'm so glad I'm only doing books - everything belongs to me and I can do it all by myself."

Isn't ignorance adorable?  It's like looking at embarrassing naked baby pictures of your brain.

I mean, I always knew that there were agents and publishers and marketing gurus, all of whom you have to play ball with if you want to see your hardback on the shelf at Barnes and Noble, but I thought that the actual writing, the content of the book, was all me.  And a conference is cake by comparison, right?

So you might be able to imagine my slowly-mushrooming surprise as I realized that I'd had help from a veritable Justice League of awesome people *just to go to writer-prom*.  The list of superheroes included:

Ensemble, whose supernatural powers of wardrobe selection transformed me into a decent-looking human being

Photo-Finish, who wields business cards like shuriken and designs them too

Frankly Speaking and the Betazoids, who tirelessly heard, read, and critiqued not only my proto-pitch (often multiple times), but the manuscript from whence it came

and the Light of My Life, who heroically held the fort at home all weekend so that I could go off gallivanting.

And it was magical, marvelous, fantastic and enlightening, but having all those people behind me for this new and decidedly extroverted experience kinda made me realize how much I've already been relying on them for the long slog leading up to it: somebody to read my stuff and give me deep feedback on it, somebody to harass me about when the next chapter will be done, somebody who lets me harass *them* about arcane research questions, somebody who helped me through life and school and unemployment so that I could stay fixated on the dream.  Someday I aim to be somebody, but I would be NOBODY without my posse.

So the third and final Great Revelation from this weekend is this: if you're doing it all by yourself, you're probably doing it wrong.

Completely bulletproof - and machine washable, darling. That's a new feature.

DFWCON 2: Lessons

I wussed out of the workshop meet tonight.  I feel dirty, like skipping class to go write the paper.

Anyway, so the marvelous Ms. Vickie Motter has already written a great series about what to do for writers' conferences, the first entry of which is --> here <--  I couldn't top that if I tried, but here while it's still fresh in mind are a few things that I learned this weekend.

Smart Moves

1.  Brutal, unrelenting cheerfulness.  It was easier than I'd expected (cuz I was genuinely having a blast), but it was amazing what a people-magnet the rainbowsparkle attitude turned out to be.

2.  Commentable features.  For me it was my name on the tag (I swear I got a thrill every time somebody hollered "TEX!!!")  For this one fellow I met, it was his immaculate formal suit-jacket, tie, and BRIGHT neon yellow pants.  My hypothesis is that people are more willing to take the plunge and strike up a conversation if you offer them an easy open (such as "good GOD man, your britches are showing up on Google Earth!")  This is probably also good for jogging an agent's memory when you shoot out an e-mail months later.  "Remember me?  I was the one cosplaying Boba Fett..."

3.  Business cards.  You probably already knew that, so bonus tip: if they're just for your writer-life, maybe have a little thumbnail photo of yourself on there, so people can whip it out weeks or months later and say "oh, right!  He's the one writing an 800-page memoir from his cat's point of view."

4.  Agent homework.  No lie, I got insane mileage out of whipping out my shoddily-printed papers and making battle-strategies with other writers who didn't know who they should pitch to.  What really clinched this was having pulled and printed information not found on the agents' websites - such as, for example, this fantastic list of things Agent Sarah LaPolla absolutely does NOT want to hear about even one more time.  When you save somebody $39 and brutal disappointment, you've basically just minted a new friend.

Pointers for Next Time

1.  More agent homework, for exactly the above reason - I only had coverage for the ones in my genre, and really wish I'd taken the time for all of them.  Plus, you never know who knows whom, or who you might end up stuck in an elevator with.

2.  More pitch practice.  Not so much with my core schpiel, but with integrating it with that particular agent's interests.  I fell absolutely flat on my face with one of them, and could have prevented that if I'd really prepped the whole thing instead of trying to hamfistedly mash the two parts together.

3.  Notes RIGHT after I talk to a fabulous new person.  I collected all these super-rad business cards and scribbled contact info, but neglected to write down what we'd talked about.  Now I can't remember which of these two ladies is the Mad Men fan who writes Don/Roger slash-fic, and that's not a thing you want to get mixed up about.

4.  Questions prepared ahead of time!  I did have a couple of generic good ones stashed up my sleeve, but it sucked to walk out of a truly awesome class and only think of a first-rate mission-critical question 20 minutes after the fact.

So there you go, future-me: take these lessons to heart and go forth to ArmadilloCon armed with experience, wisdom, and a surplus of breath mints.  Godspeed.

--So that's the secret?  Hickeys and bananas?
--No, I said she'll GO bananas.

DFWCON 1: New Neighbors

This is me, still awash in the post-coital glow from the DFW Writer's Conference.  I could fall asleep and stay there for three days easily, but instead, let me take a deep drag and write down a few of the essentials.

Point #1: The conference was AMAZING.  Knock-down, drag-out, tricycle-kid-from-the-Incredibles AWESOME.  It's the only writer's conference I've been to, but now I'm dreadfully afraid that I might have been ruined for all others.  It's kind of hard to picture how any other con could be as fun, informative, well-organized, and fantastically-attended as this one.  That is a pretty good problem to have.

Point #2: Writer-types, hie thee forth to one of these things.  It will almost-certainly be inferior to this one (see above), but more than any of the particular features, one of the best - healthiest - parts of this weekend was the meeting and greeting and going and doing.  This what we do is a lonely gig, and I had not at all realized how badly I needed to get out of my own head, and give the ol' Ouroboros something new to chew on.

Point #3: I said on Twitter that this is basically Hogwarts Disneyland Woodstock carnival-prom, for book nerds.  Let me zero in for a sec on the school part of that.

The thing is, when you are in grade school, or even in college, you are constantly being exposed to new ideas and new people.  Your classes and teachers and the kid who sits next to you in 3rd period all change from semester to semester, and although you can choose your lunch-buddies and who you invite to your birthday party, a great deal of the mixing is outside your control.  That constant social influx tends to end with adulthood.  Most of us end up with fairly stable sets of people in our lives: co-workers, friends, immediate family, whatever.  One of the things I've most enjoyed about the DFW Writer's Workshop, which was multiplied about a hundredfold at the conference, is that although you can still cultivate favorite friends, you are ALSO routinely shunted into groups of brand-new folks, who have brand-new perspectives and interests that you would have otherwise missed out on.  (And unlike those four-foot-tall larval felons in grade school, these ones here aren't after your lunch money or your self-esteem.)

What I mean to say is this: we of the pennish persuasion tend to get real focused on generating new stuff - new stories and characters and whatever.  And unless you have small children or food allergies, it's easy to forget that output correlates directly to intake.  Do yourself a favor, then, and see what you can do to increase your intake not only of books and ideas and Internet-content, but of fellow carbon-based life-forms - especially those outside your genre or Twitter feed or advertising demographic - and all the exotically-flavored brain-juices they bring.

Oh, hi Trolley.  Is it time to go back to reality now?