Pikes Peak Wrap Up

PPWC started for me the moment I arrived at noon on Friday. I had signed up for "Read and Critique 1-2-3." Writers submitted the first page of a novel and three industry professionals gave their opinions on what worked, what didn't work and whether they would keep reading.

Nathan Bransford from Curtis Brown, Kate Harrison from Dial Books and author Bill Brooks were the panelists in my session. I wish I had recorded their comments so I could bask in their warm glow on days that I lack confidence. After my heart stopped racing and I began to breathe again, I managed to scribble down a bit of what they said:

Nathan said it was subtle and well-written.

Kate said it had a good voice, without being too sassy.
It gave a good sense of growing older and not wanting to do everything with parents without being over the top.

Bill said he liked it and would read more.


The page they read was from my current WIP, Wish You Weren't. You can read the first chapter on my website.

Next I went to "Writing for Magazines" which was taught by Wendy Burt-Thomas. She had so much great information to share and she was fun to listen to. Since I do a lot of freelance writing, I took pages of notes in this workshop. I could have listened to her all day.

My last workshop on Friday was "Speed Pitching." This was an awesome class. They had seven authors at tables on opposite sides of a large room. Those of us who wanted to pitch got in line and when it was our turn, sat in front of the author of our choice and made our pitches. If we wanted to, we could get in line and pitch another person, over and over until we felt comfortable.

What I learned from "Speed Pitching" is that while you have to know your pitch and be able to say it naturally, the actual pitch lasts like a minute. The rest of the time is for asking questions and getting to know the person you're pitching. And practice makes perfect. The more times I said it, the shorter and more concise it got.

So for me, Friday alone was worth the price of admission.

Saturday I made my pitch (and got a request for a full! YAY!) and sat in on sessions with publishers and agents. I'll leave you with these comments that were echoed throughout the weekend:

I really want to fall in love with the voice. It's all about voice.

Think about what is popular, what you enjoy reading, and find a
different way to tell it.

Find the emotion in the story so that readers have an emotional response.

Breathe. Never stop writing.

Awards and Challenges

So much to write about today!

First of all, I want to congratulate Val Hobbs, who found out yesterday that her book Sheep was chosen as this year's California Young Reader Medal winner in the Intermediate category. Yay! Sheep is a great book, Val's a great writer and teacher and I'm so excited for her! (Read more about her in this post from last month.)

I talk a lot about writing novels, but I know quite a few PB writers are out there as well. If you haven't heard of the upcoming NaPiBoWriWee (trust me, I had nothing to do with the name), you should really check out this site. It's a challenge for PB authors to write 7 books in 7 days starting on May 1. Corey, Rena, are you in?

Finally, for any writer who has experienced rejection, here's a post from an editor that you just have to read. How I Read Submissions might ease a little of the sting of rejection that comes with no explanation.

A lot of you have been asking for more details about PPWC, so later today or tomorrow morning I'll be posting about that.

Not Late Enough

My husband would tell you that I'm late for everything. That is, of course, a lie. I just try to squeeze as much as I possibly can into every minute. And sometimes that puts me a little on the back side of on time.

So you can understand how proud I was to arrive at Denver International Airport more than two hours before my plane was scheduled to leave. I went through security, found a plug that worked and started catching up on all the blogs I hadn't visited while I was at the conference. Did I mention DIA has free wireless internet? LOVE that!

The flight was scheduled to leave at 9:05. At 8:35 it occurred to me that my part of the concourse was really quiet. No passengers were waiting. No ticketing agent was at the desk. I pulled out my boarding pass and realized that I was supposed to be at B79, not B29.

If any of you are familiar with DIA, you know how long the B concourse is. Am I exaggerating when I say it's at least a mile from one end to the other?

I flew down that concourse in record time, arrived at the gate and found a line. I did NOT want to stand in line to talk to a desk agent. What if they'd already loaded the plane? Out of breath with my heart in my throat, I looked up at the digital display of outgoing flights. Santa Barbara was not listed. Now I was really worried.

At 8:55 I finally get to the front of the line. The Santa Barbara flight has been moved. Down an elevator and another quarter mile to gate B85.

I won't repeat the expletives that came out of my mouth at that point. Of course, when I arrived at B85, there was another line. And when I looked at the display, again, Santa Barbara was not on the list.

This time I took cuts. I'm sorry. I didn't arrive at the airport two hours early only to miss my flight!

Of course, as it turns out, I was still early. The flight had been delayed until 10:15. And then it was delayed again. Let's just say that by the time I crawled into bed, it was 1:30 a.m. here, 2:30 a.m. in Colorado.

If this is what happens when you're early, I'm going back to being late.

Pikes Peak Rocks!

It's been a while since I've been to a conference, but I have to say I'm really liking this one!

The speakers are fabulous. The food is great (of course, I'm only eating the vegetarian selections). Other writers are so supportive. And my pitch went well. Really well. I'll be sending out a full manuscript when I get home :^)


One of the things that surprised me the most was the laid back atmosphere at the luncheons and dinners. When you enter the dining room, round tables are set up with the name of each presenter. You could walk up to any table and sit where you chose. So if you wanted to meet an agent from Curtis Brown like Nathan Bransford or an editor like Rose Hilliard from St. Martin's Press, you could sit right next to them at a meal.


I was lucky enough to sit by Kate Harrison from Dial Books the first night and we had a great conversation. I really appreciated being able to talk to her in such a relaxed setting. (You'll be hearing more from her in an upcoming blog.) It was also fun to meet fellow blogger Yat-Yee, and go to a MG/YA writer party with her (she's got the photos to prove it!).


Colorado has a great writing community. The people who run this conference are so organized. Pam, Karen, Dawn - you guys are awesome! I've been very impressed. And so glad I came!

Voice and Influence

Yesterday a friend and I were talking about our writing. She made the comment that when she was working on her novel, she wouldn't let herself read because she didn't want to start sounding like someone else.

I was kind of surprised to hear that. I mean, I can't go for more than a few days without reading a book. And I tend to feel so personally about my characters that I can't imagine them taking on someone else's voice.

But I do remember reading Eragon and being really annoyed that he had the main character communicate with the dragon in his head. I had written a book with a girl main character who spoke to her dragon telepathically. And I wrote it long before Paolini's books hit the shelves. (Mine will remain on the shelf, too. It was one of THOSE kinds of books!)

Nathan Bransford pointed out yesterday that there are very few original ideas out there. Which basically means that as writers, we have to find unique ways to tell similar stories. As agents and editors would say, you need to have a compelling voice.

So here's my question. How much are we influenced by the stories we've already heard? And how much are we influenced by how they are told? If there's really nothing new under the sun, what can we do to make our stories stand out?

Okay, so that was actually three questions. Anybody have the answers?

Website Issues Resolved?

Thanks to all of you who visited my website yesterday and alerted me to the problem with the navigation buttons. I think I solved the problem, so would you do me a huge favor and go back to see if you can get past the opening page now?

This was only a problem for people using Internet Explorer, but now everyone should be able to navigate the site no matter what program they use.

Crossing my fingers, toes, and other body parts :^)

sherriepetersen.com

Thank you!

My Beautiful (I hope!) Obsession

To say that I've been obsessed would be a gross understatement.

I've pushed aside sleep, exercise, folding laundry (I really cried over that one) and reading (!!) because of my enthusiasm. And for what, you ask?

A website. My website.

Back in the days when the internet was young, websites were simple and images took forever to download, I taught myself HTML. I have a background in graphic design and learning this new technology was fun for me.

But simple HTML was soon crowded out by CSS, XHTML, Flash, and other bells and whistles that made my head spin. I backed away and left web design to others more technologically inclined than me.

Last week after we got home from Yosemite, I decided that I wanted to create a web site for myself, complete with sample chapters and a bio *shudder*. I knew what I wanted the site to do. I just had to figure out the code to make it work that way.

And with the exception of a few ticks which I am NOT going to point out, I did. I think.

Have a look and tell me what YOU think. Is it too much? Not enough? Easy to navigate or confusing? Boring? Ugly? Well done?

Tell me! Because I want to get it right...whatever that means...

www.sherriepetersen.com