I’m on a handful of Yahoo forums for writers. One of them is TWLAuthorTalks, owned by Dorothy Thompson.

I joined the list not long ago when I read on another list that she’d invited an agent, Jessica Faust of BookEnds, to join as a guest and answer member questions.

As it happens, Jessica read and rejected my very first completed novel, an inspirational genre romance that I wrote about 7 years ago.

Then last week, Dorothy announced that her next agent-guest would be Jenny Bent of Trident [update: Jenny now has her own agency] — who, coincidentally read and rejected my second completed novel last winter.

That has to mean something! just don’t know what, lol

Anyway, first Jenny was only going to be on for one day. Then she agreed to stick around for a second day, and then (much to her later regret no doubt!) yesterday morning she agreed to critique one-sentence elevator pitches submitted between 4:00 and 5:30.

Just to be clear, this all happened yesterday so it’s too late to send a pitch. However, if you join the group, you can read the pitches and critiques in the message archives. I highly recommend it — you’ll find it’s quite an education.

Seeing this happen in real time was an incredible experience as well. The group had 18 members when I joined a few weeks ago. Now there are over 200. The pitches were FLYING.

Here’s the pitch I sent, for my current WIP:

As word spreads that divorced biologist Libby Samson has seen real live “little folk” on her property, she must decide whether a sexy neighbor’s subsequent betrayal was in reality an act of love, intended to save her dreams of organic farming from being destroyed by unwanted celebrity and the crazy demands of her self-proclaimed devotees.

I was thrilled by Jenny’s critique, because what she liked was the set-up, and what she didn’t care for was the conflict (“she must decide . . .”) — which is a flaw of the pitch, not the novel. I put my poor protag through a lot in this book! But when I was writing the pitch I was trying to figure out how to work in that the book includes a romance — and with only one sentence to work with . . . well. That’s the challenge. What to put in? What to leave out?

Anyway, I have some great feedback to use for when I start querying — which may be pretty soon. I am deep into my second draft of this piece, plus I really have to get it wrapped up this month. I’m in another Yahoo group, Deanna Carlyle’s 52Days, the purpose of which is to write a novel in 52 days — and the kick-off is July 1 . . . tick tock tick tock tick tock

lol

[tags] writing, literary agents, querying [/tags]