So my bags are packed – kinda – and I’m ready to go – well, not until tomorrow actually. But tomorrow in the a.m. I’ll be off. To the New England SCBWI.

I must admit it’s going to be different.

Every year I’ve gone, I’ve waited in anticipation with my heart all a-flutter because I would be meeting with an agent and/or an editor. And, of course, since the month or more that I’d sent in my pages or query letter – I’d changed them! So I’d print the new ones with a little prepared speech.

“Um, yeah, thanks for the critique of my 10 pages but I’ve rewritten them. Could you please spend two minutes of our fifteen minutes together reading over the first page? Thanks. I mean I really appreciate your one page of notes but through beta readers I’d already come to the conclusion that they could use a little, okay some major tweaking, and needed to be rewritten.”

Usually, the agents requested for me to send pages.

Sometimes they’d get back to me. Some would never get back.

Blah.

But I’m telling you, the couple hours before those meetings my stomach would hurt as in shooting pain. I tried to relax casually on a couch in the lounge, going back and forth between looking for my friends so I didn’t feel like such a dork, and practicing my memorized verbal pitch for a second novel, you know, just in case the topic came up.

But this year. Is. Different.

No meetings. Though I’m the coordinator for the query critiques so I’ll be talking with ten agents. Ironic, no?

I’m so very excited to talk with friends. And there are so many hot topics to talk about. Self publishing. The D.O.J. Amazon. Great books we’ve read. Just about anything and everything. Kris, my friend and crit partner, gets to meet her agent for the first time. Very cool. I’m attending an ebook building class and one on Amazon for authors.

But I’m also extremely interested in listening to what other writers are talking about. How many are thinking about self publishing? Or how many already have? Or, will that still be a topic that’s whispered about behind closed doors and in dark corners. Kind of like spin the bottle but with publishing.

I guess I’ll find out tomorrow! See you next week!

(And thanks to everyone for the comments and congrats on signing with Pugalicious Press!)