Day Two with the Sisters in Crime

 I present the evidence from last night at my writer's conference.

No, that is not the progression of my evening alone at the bar. 

As previously arranged, I met with a kind author, Dorothy Cannell, to whom I had submitted several pages of my second book. She offered any number of suggestions, all of which of course require scads more writing. But on the plus side, she seemed to like the bones of what I had so that was heartening. 

While I had been waiting to meet Ms. Cannell, I was hanging around in the lobby like a not very subtle drug dealer. One of the conference's organizers stopped what she was scurrying around doing to introduce herself and chat for a moment. 

My critique had taken place at a cozy corner of the bar and afterwards I saw no reason to leave, and a G & T was calling to me. 

Halfway through my drink, there was the organizer again, inviting me to her table full of veterans and conference newbies. 

That was pretty much the way the evening progressed.

I've met an agent who reminded me of Nero Wolfe in both girth and jaundiced attitude. I've met a desperately shy writer from Vermont who is fearless in her determination to get published - to the degree of going this summer to New York City by herself (for the first time ever) and corralling an agent at the Writer's Digest conference. I've heard one person try to pitch a book she hasn't finished and doesn't know how it ends. I've heard an agent say that all agents lie, and who compared self-published authors' efforts to craft-fair participants whose work is inferior to Wal-Mart.

Another full day ahead.