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IT’S MY BIRTHDAY TOO YEAH! (Beatles + Metropolis = I’m the chick at 1:30. )

A list of books recommended to me over the course of the conference, not including any craft books recommended during seminars: Little Britches, by Ralph Moody (the Colorado boy’s version of Little House on the Prairie) Modesty Blaise, by Peter O’Donnell/Ralph Holdaway (comic strip) The Company of the Dead, by David Kowalski Legend, by David

Sunday Inexorable and Satisfying Endings with Laura Reeve. Fiction can either introduce a new perspective or confirm a reader’s beliefs. Genre fiction mostly confirms a reader’s beliefs. Each genre has its own expectations for endings. Romance novels? Happy endings. Mysteries and thrillers? Find out who dunnit and how. Literary novels? Resonant endings (to be explained

Saturday Agent Pitch to Cherry Weiner (wee-ner). I’d been hearing I was getting too long for my story. Cherry said, “70K? And you’re trying to cut words? No, honey. Add 30K and send it to me.” I don’t know if I’ll get that many in, but man was it a relief to hear that. I’ve

Friday Agent roundtable with Pamela Harty, Kate McKean, and Laurie McLean. My major revelation was that some agents have a focus on selling a novel, while others may also work with you on your proposal, editing on the novel, and even marketing. The impression I got was that small agencies with multiple people share a

You know how it feels when you’ve actually completed a major writing project that you love? Or what it feels like when you’ve finished a really good book? This whole weekend was filled with the sense of “I can do this.” Maybe not, “I can make a living off this and quit my job in

Bill Trout and Miss Dewey, after Bill’s made an offer to help her with something: “See you tomorrow?” “I’ll have to go home, take my shoes off, wrap myself up in Mom’s quilt, and think about it.” I goggled at her. “A quilt? Won’t that be hot?” “Oh, no,” she smiled. She held her hands

Okay, it’s after pitch practice, and I have a new logline. Two, actually. One is “Hollywood High Concept” and goes like this: So Spider Robinson and Kurt Vonnegut go to a bar and decide to write a story about aliens, and that’s Alien Blue. I’m supposed to say that first. And then: Anyway, after this

Ray and I went to the exhibits at the 24th National Space Symposium last week. I could go into detail, but I can sum it up accurately by saying it was the Farm and Home Show of Outer Space. Ray came home with a bag of swag and I got to say, “I work for

I’m working on my short Alien Blue descriptions tonight to prepare for Pitch Practice tomorrow. Here’s the Who/What/How (Who tries to do What How?) formulaic version: After helping hide an escaped interstellar criminal for the past sixteen years, a New Mexico bar owner plays one last gambit to save his town and the alien–by erasing