The End of the Road

Well, it's Thursday, and which means that it's been 3 days since my last rejection. Keep your fingers and toes crossed that I have nothing more innocuous in my mailbox this afternoon than my missing RT Book Club magazine. I can't believe how late it's been this month, bloody Mercury in Retrograde screwed everything up.

I finally managed to finish my President's letter for the month, only 3 days late, which is good for me. The one thing that I find tough about being President of my local chapter is the monthly President's letter for the newsletter. You're probably thinking how can she blog every day (practically) and have such a problem with a measly letter.

Well, on my blog I can write about pretty much anything, including my obsessions with Reality TV and British actors. Somehow I think the members are expecting a little bit more from me than that. I try to inspire the members every month, give them useful tidbits about writing gleaned from my own life, or something interesting historically relating to the theme of the month.

This month, I wrote a column about pitching. Since we have our annual Wine & Cheese Reception also known as the Golden Apple Awards, I thought I would share some useful tips when pitching to an editor and agent. Fortunately the reception is a little less nerve-wracking than the editor and agent appointments at National, but it can still be pretty strange.

What normally happens is the members stand on one side of the room and the editors and agents end up standing on the other side, and neither the twain shall meet as it were. My job when I was the Wine & Cheese chair was to make sure that both sides mingled, so I would end up shepherding unsuspecting members over to Ms. Agent or Editor and introducing them, making sure to mention what they might be writing, and then let them take it over from there.

After awhile, and after much wine, people tend to loosen up a bit, and members feel more comfortable pitching their novels to the captive editor or agent.

I can't believe that summer is almost over and I've done almost nothing on writing my new novel apart from scribbling 25 pages. Hopefully now that I'm done with my newsletter writing, I can get down to the serious business of editing Nearly Famous to send out, and get cracking on my new manuscript. I still have four months to write two new books. I think I can do it if I write them simultaneously. That would make 3 books in one year. Not quite Nora Roberts output but getting there.