Gorracula Stage 6 (Midwest Writer's Conference)

Let's fast forward a bit. My last entry left the story dangling right around spring 2012.

2012 produced nothing more in the realm of writing. I made personal advances, formed relationships and began planning my next moves in life. But for the purposes of this book's story we can pretty much ignore the remainder of 2012.

January 2013 I laid down a writing challenge with a fellow writer, we would pay for our admission to the Midwest Writer's Conference and then have the six months leading up to it to produce 50,000 word drafts with which to attend the conference. Thus I began writing in earnest. I began adapting the screenplay into a prose narrative, I attempted to maintain the tone of offbeat comedy though it was becoming clear that in the more complex form of the novel the characters wanted elaboration. If I was going to maintain my own interest I would have to make the story more about the people and less about the events. This slowed me down considerably as I was still fighting to keep it as the silly farcical thing it had been born as.

I read a lot more novels than I normally did, trying to gain some greater fluency, to get my head into the right space. It worked to a certain degree, though I only managed about 35,000 words by the time of the conference and what I had was a bit choppy.

I entered on the conference with a concept I liked, a solid start on a draft and a tiny pulse of optimism. The conference went well and was interesting, a lot of non-specific "you-can-do-it" encouragement and a decent amount of useful practical information on everything from researching a real world detail to navigating tax time as a freelance writer.

I had paid the extra amount for the privilege of a pitch session with a real working agent. I had my story pitch whittled down to three brief direct sentences which I memorized. I sat down across from the agent, a pleasant and open faced young woman perhaps five years younger than me and I tried to put the picture of the story in her mind clearly and quickly.

The final exam pitch session from back in film school was a very useful reference point and my success in that situation gave a feeling confidence if not complete ease. It translated pretty well. She liked the idea and gave me her card. She asked me to send a sample.

Read PT 7.