Historical Novel Society Conference

I'm excited and intimidated to attend the HNS-2017 Conference in Portland. I've been working in my little office for so long on my novel, which I lovingly refer to as Elvira, even though it's titled A Certain Deceit, that I'm in my own little world. I know I need to climb out and be brave and begin to share my work with someone other than John (and Ellie). But a large gathering like this is waaaayyy outside my comfort zone.

My initial impressions are that people are so friendly! (Not exactly like all those work conferences I attended, where colleagues pasted on their smiles and wanted to rip your throat out.) And while there are a lot of published authors, there are many, many more in my boat. We've been pecking away and it's become time to either put up or stay in our little dens forever.

I'm looking forward to learning more about the publishing business. But even more, I want to figure out what more I need to do with my own work.

I have scheduled a few "pitch" sessions with Editors (the Agent sessions were already full), and I want to use these meetings to work on my verbal presentation, which has been pitiful. Also, I hope to get a sense of whether my story resonates, at all. If it doesn't, I obviously need to think harder about what I'm doing with this particular project. I hope, even though I only have eight minutes, to get some sort of feedback. We will see.