ZEROING IN ON CRIME BAKE, NOVEMBER 11-13, 2016

This will be my first Crime Bake and I’m a little nervous about pitching.

The editors and agents at Crime Bake who have signed up to be pitched to, must have done this before; many times, even. How can they sort through this jumble of prospective first time authors, each of whom thinks that their baby is the prettiest one in the room? How can they keep separate the different sub-genres of crime that they will have to hear? They will be blasted with a new story every three minute for one hundred minutes, non-stop, maybe only pausing for a sip of water or coffee to keep their stamina up. A power bar? Will the person I get to pitch my baby to need to take a comfort break during my three minutes and completely throw me off stride? Do I, will I, have a stride?

There will also be a roundtable session. Each table will be ably manned, woman-ned or child-ed (and believe me, at my age there’s an awful lot of professionals out there who look like children), by either an author or agent who will listen to log lines and first pages. Will they be able to help me with my pitch later on in the Bake? When I presented my experimental log lines to my own personal group last week I came away knowing I was lacking in pizzazz. When I presented my first page I was found lacking in everything. Yes, I can correct my first page, but what about the remaining pages? There are lots of pages beyond the first, and if each one has to be gone over with the thoroughness that my group raked my first page over the coals with, what’s to become of me???

This writing thing is a harsh and cruel business. How come there to be so many books in print if authors have to crawl out from under a bus every time they present their work?

Oy vey ist mir, as they say in the old country.

However, I will be going to Crime Bake 2016 with two good buddies. They will support me through thick and thin.

Right, ladies? Because I promise to be there, whenever, for you.