Florida Writers Conference 2015: Towards the end of the day

As mentioned in the earlier article, I am at the Florida Writers Association conference for the day, and I learned a few things:

1) the comma is dead, unfortunately.  ...I should also include ellipses, sad but true.

2) I was the only one to show up with a comic book character's logo on a t-shirt.

3) there's a lot of things I can do to improve the odds of getting published.

I sat in on the discussions involving the importance of networking, from there a session discussing the many literary magazines out there and the tips on successfully getting published with MAYBE one of them.  Maybe.

I participated on a pitch-fest where I made my first effort to pitch a story idea to a rough, heavily-armed group of agents and publishers just waiting for the blood sacrifice, mwha.  I intentionally flubbed it because I promised the fellow writer who went ahead of me I would: she was so nervous she was going to get "gonged" - yes, there was a gong and it was used often - that in order to settle her nerves I did so.  I wanted to show her it was just a practice pitch - not a real one to worry over - and that you NEEDED to relax and let loose and unclench.  Do it without the stress, you know?

I wowed them with the first line anyway: "Aliens." hehe.

...what, you all never watched that bit with the pigeons from Disney's Bolt?

(Update: Yeah. Like that. Snap,)

Past that there was lunch, and a session on how to tell the difference between novella and novel (hint: it's NOT entirely based on word count, but on the focus/complexity of the work).

I sat in on the "Ask An Agent" session to see what the agents themselves suggest about looking for one and how to succeed.  For myself, I'm kinda in the self-publishing stage for now.  Once I get novels done - FINALLY done - I will do the legwork to get an agent to do the real legwork for a small-to-big market publisher.

The day is finishing up now with a session on how to submit to the FWA-based writing contests and publications, and thence to the dinner hall.

I documented the atrocities with photos.

I tweeted all over the place with #FWA2015 by the by

Talking about getting published to literary magazines

From the Lakeland Writers meetup group, here's Alison Nissen!

Agents of SHIE... no wait...