The Power of a Properly Placed. Period.

When I first joined the L Perkins Agency as an intern, Lori Perkins gave me an invaluable piece of advice: dust off and re-read your old copy of Strunk and White. No, really read it, even if you think that you’ve got that punctuation thing down.

So now, I pass that advice along to you, dear reader.  Read Strunk and White.  Love it.  Hold it close to your heart.  And actually use the lessons you find there.

My blog is an S&W nightmare, but don’t let your manuscript be one.  You’d be amazed how many partials I read where the author seems to have no clue what to do with quotation marks, and if you’re writing dialogue that can be a fatal flaw.  The meaning and art behind your prose can be completely sabotaged by horrible formatting.  You don’t want a potential agent cringing and reaching for a red pen as they read your partial.  Or worse yet, completely missing your intention.

Good thing is that this is one of the easiest writing weaknesses to fix.   Less than $10, S&W is cute, easily fits in your purse and can exponentially increase your odds of getting an agent.

 

For the Love of the Game

If you follow me on twitter or get emails from me, you’ll notice that sometimes I’m up working at ridiculous times of the day.  That’s not just because I’m a night owl.  

It takes a ridiculous amount of time to read manuscripts, make edits, and negotiate contracts.  Back when I was doing this part time, I had 5 clients max.  As an intern, my only responsibility was to go through the slush pile and pick out the gems.  

Now?  I’ve jumped to 30+ clients, all of whom are in the process of actively submitting work.  So gone are the days of working 9-5 (actually it was more like 10-6) and going home to leisurely make my way through the slush.  

These days, I’m up at 2am, giving that partial manuscript or submitted blog that caught my interest a thorough read. All after a day of contract negotiations and client communications that took twice or thrice the amount of time I had scheduled.  

And my god, I love it.  I can’t think of any other job/career I’d stay up for (and I’ve tried a few).

Just wanted to share the joy.

 

NJ Romance Writers’ Conference

This weekend’s  NJ Romance Writers’ Conference was the first I’ve ever attended and despite a rocky start, I had a blast.  There was some communication mix-up that had the organizers thinking I might not attend, but once we got that all settled, they were so quick to bounce back, I was impressed.

Despite the mix-up, I had a steady stream of writers ready to pitch their stories to me during Saturday morning’s agent appointments.  I’ve spent 90% of my agent time interacting with writers via phone or email, so getting a live query was definitely a nice change of pace.  My two favorite pitches involved work that doesn’t fall within the genres that I usually represent but that, if the writing turns out to be strong, I’d love to take on.  I am very ready to expand my guidelines for the right project.  (Don’t get jealous, my beloved Erotica, you must have known that my eye would wander).  If you’re wondering, the right project tends to include strong females, not matter the age.  Both of my fave pitches from the conference had interesting, empowered women at the center of the story.

I walked away from the conference with some awesome goodies.  I got a plush white RWA towel, four free books and a mini-bottle of Woodbridge chardonnay.  These women know how to throw a conference.

Random bit of trivia: During lunch, I sat with a group of women who’ve been married for longer than I’ve been alive.  I asked for their secret (I definitely had something to learn, I can’t even commit to an exercise regimen) and walked away with this gold nugget: If you find something worth being committed to, you have to work everyday to maintain that commitment.  Who knew that romance writers from Rhode Island would remind me of lyrics from a Common song?  “Anything worth having you work at annually.” /digression