Sherri Cornelius

I know it’s Friday and nobody and not their dog will read this post, but I have some rambling to get out, and it must be done.

So I have this book I’m writing. We’ll call it BVA. I love this book. From the very first day I’ve thought this book will be my “break-out” book. Now before you get all excited, this isn’t about BVA breaking out, I just want to convey how cool I think this book will be when it’s finished.

I wrote another book a while back, EG. Completely different look and feel than BVA. EG is sensual whereas BVA is bleak. EG’s setting is medieval while BVA’s is contemporary. The main character of EG is all girl, and BVA’s is a tough cookie. Looking back, EG was delivered with relative ease. I am still in labor with BVA.

I haven’t thought about the EG world in about a year, maybe longer. It’s with the agent making the rounds, and though I had planned at least two more volumes, there’s no point in writing a sequel when the first one hasn’t sold yet. So instead I’ve been working on BVA. Or rather, pummeling on it.

Yesterday I decided to take a break from BVA. Agent has the submission package so it would be the perfect time, when one month will make absolutely no difference. The point I’m at now, I don’t think I’ll get anything significant done in the next month anyway. And plus, I need a break, darn it!

So today during my writing time I pulled out the dusty stacks of notebooks and loose paper which represent every idea I’ve ever had, and started through it. The first thing I came across was the notes for CT, sequel to EG. I read. I got lost in it.

I remembered CT being very rough, and it was but it didn’t matter. I found myself with a pencil in my hand, making notes in the margin, but I didn’t remember grabbing the pencil or deciding to make the notes. Surprised the hell out of me. That is some good shit. And it just goes to show that I HAVE NO IDEA OF THE QUALITY OF MY OWN WORK AND NEVER HAVE. I’m not saying that in a self-aggrandizing way, I’m saying sometimes I think what I wrote sucks, sometimes I think it’s good…and it always turns out to be about the same quality. It’s freaking crazy. I absolutely have to start trusting myself.

And yet I can’t apply that trust to BVA because I’m too close to it. I know where my blind spot it, and BVA is smack in the middle of it. I used to love the plot but have no idea how to execute it. Now I know how to execute it, but the energy is not there. I’m numb. I need to write something that excites me, but it’s not the right time for CT. I need some ideas. Maybe now that I’m not constantly thinking about the physics of the Black Veil I can catch a new minnow with my net.

I’m done rambling, I guess. Any questions?

I found out something about the world while mingling with other adults at the conference, and here it is: Nine o’clock is not “late” for most people.

I also learned that I’m pretty good company, especially after a glass of wine. And that underneath my shyness is a craving for face-to-face conversation. Also that people forgive most faux pas, probably because they remember their own. Who hasn’t flipped a crouton across the room?

Thursday night we had a storm with up to baseball-sized hail. The biggest hail I’d ever seen, which punched holes in my mom’s rain gutter and ruined the roof on the house across the street. I saw many cars with shattered rear windshields over the weekend, the first being in the hotel parking lot. I got video of a tight little pre-tornadic cloud rotation right over my mom’s house in Midwest City, but for some reason I can’t get it uploaded here. Maybe later.

My brother kindly gave up his bed to me to save hotel fees, and my mom gave up her SUV for the weekend so I could drive back for meals. I appreciate it so much, because staying in the hotel was out of the question this year. The gas factor was negligible, since the hotel was literally five minutes away.

My pitch session was first thing Friday morning with James Minz, senior editor at Baen. He made me feel right at home during my session, as well as the couple of times I spoke to him over the weekend. A very easygoing and knowledgeable guy, an interesting speaker, eager to help the newbies.

Minz has edited some really big-name authors, including some of my faves: Lawrence Watt-Evans, Elizabeth Haydon, and especially Catherine Asaro. We actually talked about the Skolian books a little, and he told me a funny story about the cover of Skyfall, which I may relate later. Somebody remind me.

I guess I’m skirting the real news about my pitch session, which is that he asked to see Ea’s Gift. I’d gone in pitching BVA, the newest project, but when he asked about other projects and I told him about EG, he said, “Well, I’d actually be more interested in that,” and to tell my agent to send it to him. Is that as exciting as I think it is? I’m really trying to be cool about the whole thing, but I did have a dream in which he bought EG. Of course, then he morphed into James Carvill and we got married, so I’m dubious about the prophetic nature of the dream.

Here I am right after the pitch, before the adrenaline crashed and left me limp and headachey:

So the pitch was the big event on Friday. I was wiped out but managed to go to a few more sessions (including the Minz session pictured above) before I called it a day. I skipped the evening’s activities, a cash bar reception and the J.A. Jance speech at the banquet, and my bro and I went to Borders instead and picked up some novels. I bought a Lois McMaster Bujold (how did I go so long without reading her?) and a Laurell K. Hamilton.

Saturday was actually the better day, the productive pitch session on Friday notwithstanding. I came out of my shell on Saturday, though it took a few hours. I finally figured out that most of the sessions were geared toward writers with less experience than I have, so I didn’t worry about getting to every one. I hit the high points, hung out in the central meeting area, and went home to rest when I felt like it. Met a lot of interesting people, including William (a WWII vet and electronic engineer) and Rachel (the prettiest girl in the world and an artist I could see doing my future book covers), and Wayne Wyrick (Director of the Kirkpatrick Planetarium), who made me feel right at home when I was shy and nervous. Writers are such a great group of people.

As a result of my go-with-the-flow attitude, I had plenty of energy to dress up for the reception and banquet. I ordered my first glass of wine in probably ten years with help from the lovely bartender. I chose the red Zinfandel. I felt like a real grown up rubbing elbows with editors and authors in my silver high-heels with a glass of wine in my hand. So cool.

At the banquet I hooked up with some ladies I know on the internet. Although a Jenny McCarthy look- and act-alike at the next table eclipsed us with her group’s contest wins, Jen Nipps (left) managed to pull some eyes our way with her two wins. The rest of us were wishing we’d entered something so we could be included in the excitement.

I’m in the purple, paranormal romance author Gloria Harchar and her daughter, Audrey, are to my immediate right, and Harlequin author Tessa McDermid there on the right.

Believe it or not, it was my first girl’s night out in probably ten years, perhaps the last time I had wine, and I was so jazzed to be talking to these ladies about agent issues and editor changes in such a matter-of-fact way.

So that was my weekend in a nutshell. A very large nut’s shell, to be sure, but there was much more I wanted to say. The rest will come out in bits and pieces over the week, probably, along with links and possibly more pictures, though a lot of them are blurry for some reason. I’ll have to see.

Whew.