The morning did not exactly dawn for me. It was more like I awoke to the traffic heading up and down Santa Monica Blvd, just feet away from my hotel room…and the dawn of creative light and driving need to finish my pitch got my feet onto the floor and into the shower.
Falling asleep had not come easily the night before either as I thought about my pitch and recorded some thoughts in the dark on my phone. Now, all I needed to do was to get to The Coffee Bean (hoping it was open this early), do a little research, plug in my new book idea and fine tune the rest. All of which I was almost able to accomplish before most people awake on a Saturday morning. Yet, when I went to practice the live pitch, it sounded way to wordy and exceeded the 90 seconds they told us we would have.
No worries for now though. It was time to head to my first workshop with Brian Klems, blog author to book author of Oh Boy: You’re Having a Girl!, whose talk encouraged me I was moving in the right direction with my own blog, followed by another workshop to help me fine tune my pitch.
After my head was once again starting to get that “I’m at a conference learning more then I can possibly absorb” feel to it, I excused myself from the lovely people I had met and headed to get myself grounded: to find my little piece of earth out in the sun in the concrete world of LA. I’m not sure how or where I picked up my public speaking skills (and I’m sure those that have heard me speak might not be sure either!), yet something kicked in and I was able to get my pitch down to what I THOUGHT were the basics of a good pitch – and all within the 90 seconds. Perfecto! Now I needed to find some good food that would not weigh me down and find a way to calm the growing nerves in me.
By the end of lunch I had to really do some internal work on those nerves. I mean, really, where were those coming from? These agents are people just like me and being so new at this process, no matter what I was walking out of that room with more then what I was going in with. So what was it, why did I have that hyperactive, anxious feeling in the pit of my stomach and elsewhere growing with each step leading me back to the hotel?
“You are not just pitching your book, nor even yourself, Holli. You are pitching The Cause. The Cause that was born in you 3 years ago as you lied in bed reading the statistics on domestic abuse. This might have been what Jesus himself felt as he stepped into his own Cause 2000+ years ago.”
Wow, yes this was it. This was why my nerves were firing. In my conversations I had already had since yesterday, people were paying attention, they were curious and they were willing to hear my theories. What if the agents and the editors I pitched also bought into what I was saying? Was I ready to fully engage in The Cause, in the message of The Cause that I feel has defined my life? Was I ready for what might happen to my life the way it has been lived up until now, that of an average everyday citizen of America?
While a very real part of me screamed “NO!”, the other part of me said, “you were born for such a time as this.” Okay, well maybe I didn’t hear the words Mordecai had spoken to Ester exactly – but they were close.
I listened to those words, the words that told me to go forth, be brave and share my story for the time is ripe for such a story as mine and for a new way to approach the plague of abuse. I am so glad I did, for the very first agent I pitched was more then just interested – she was excited. AND, AND she was familiar with the work of Gerda Lerner. She asked me to send her my work…work that will take me a bit more to get put together….but work that I assure you is forthcoming.
The rest of the pitch slam was more then I could have possibly expected or hoped for…and by the end of the day I was again flying high on the song of hope not just for me but for the times. As the 2nd day came to a close and I was perusing the schedule for tomorrow, I decided that I had for now learned more then enough about the industry. Tomorrow I would focus on my writing craft and my goal of writing my story in a way that is as compelling to read as any great fiction.
For I had begun to see at this conference that while I understood writing from a scholarly approach and yes even for a blog, I still wasn’t sure translate that into a book. And if my early attempts to follow the advice of “just keep writing” were any indication of discovering my book – I could see this could be an excruciating and long process. This is the point where my question for this series sprang up on me:
