It's Saturday and I am finally ready to make my debut at the World Fantasy convention! Woohoo! It's time to make some connections, promote my book, and possibly land a literary agent.
I AM READY!!
I pulled myself out of bed (remember that I told you my host's boiler broke?)
Yeah...that means no heat or hot shower!
I managed to begrudgingly take a very frigid birdbath and hurried to layer up my clothing. Once I was reasonably warm and ready to face the bitter winds of Brighton, I headed out and began my way to the coast. It was a lovely walk, I must say!
After a thirty minute walk, and a lot of wind trying to pull me into the air and fly me back home, I made it to the Hilton Brighton Metropole.
Oh yeah! We made it!
I made my way directly to the registration desk and picked up my lovely badge!
Then, I was directed to a table full of FREE BOOKS! Yay! This is already a success!
Oh...but wait a minute...something is missing.
Hmmm...
Yes! That's better. The Chronicles of Koa looks grand on that table.
I grabbed a handful of books and put them in my lovely WFC bag. I then set some business cards on a table covered with other author's promotional literature.
Now, it's time to network!
Within minutes I found a group of authors, publishers, and aspiring authors who became my new best friends!
I managed to make a fan out of most of them as well!
And then...something happened that made me shake and nearly cry and shout for joy.
I met Brandon Sanderson's agent! Do you know how major that is? Brandon Sanderson is one of the biggest fantasy writers in the world right now! And I went to this convention specifically hoping to meet his agent. When I found out that he was literally in the same room as me, I got right up, walked over to him prepared to pitch and...
Stood there giggling...
Ha! Sounds like me all right!
The men with him looked back at me and the other girls with a perplexed look and asked if we needed something. OK, time to be professional.
Stop being awkward!
Turns out one of the men was an agent from Zeno! I got his info and turned to my main target. The owner of Jaberwocky, and Sanderson's agent. He was very friendly! He actually listened to my pitch and told me to send him an email!
Whoa!!!!!!!!
Talk about giddy!
He left and I could have started dancing and jumping for joy. That's when one of my new friends said, "All right, no fan-girling until we leave the room."
Ha! I love this new term "fan-girling!"
After lunch, still beaming about my early success, I went to a few workshop panels. My favorite was a panel of publishers who gave their best advice and input on what they like and don't like. I took pages of notes! Incredible information that I cannot wait to utilize.
I also went to a panel about Machen and how fantasy and realism collide. Very interesting stuff!
After the panels, there was a...PARTY!
Woohoo! Bring on the passed appetizers and free wine and beer. Ha!
Bring on the cute Belgians!
Bring on Neil Gaiman!
Whew! Welcome to Brighton!
Cheers!
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