The Pitch

I'm registered for a pitch session with an agent at the upcoming LDS Storymakers conference in April and just received an email from author/editor Josi Kilpack, one of the organizers, providing a link to a blog post she wrote to help those who are preparing to pitch.

Being an often verbose person, I've been starting to practice whittling my words down to create a concise pitch and make the most of my 10 minutes with an agent. Hopefully Josi's tips will help others in the same boat.

I'm also looking forward to hearing from Inker Kirk (a.k.a. The S.E.) at our next meeting about effective pitches.

Just to practice, I've been creating pitches for existing works, either movies or books.

Guess the title or create one of your own:

Star-crossed lovers on a doomed ocean liner

In a post-apocalyptic U.S., a group of survivors fight for free will against a new government implanting mind control chips to create a "perfect" society.

A young orphan boy discovers he is really a wizard, destined to either save or destroy an alternate wizarding universe.

Olympic Moms

Things Mom's should get Olympic medals for:

Speed skating--In this Mom event you slide across a surface...not necessarily slippery to save a child or your upholstery from disaster.

Sick Child Marathon--A 26.1 hour marathon of nursing, soothing or comforting a sick child with no sleep, no aid stations, and no foreseeable finish line. Platinum medals need to be invented for this event.

Downhill Super G--In this Super G Moms are required to stop an avalanche of laundry from consuming an otherwise clean room.

These are just a few events Moms face everyday that no one is handing out medals for but someone should be.

What other events do you think deserve medals?

Princess of Glass

Diva Donna has some mad dog skills at being bold and asking for what she wants. Through this medium we Inkers obtained an ARC (Advanced Reader Copy) of Jessica Day George's forth-coming book, "Princess of Glass". We saw Jessica at Dragons and Fairy Tales independent bookstore in Eagle Mountain.

Now I am not articulate like my fellow Inkers when it comes to reviews (hopefully they will give a more in-depth/critical/authoritative review of it at a later date). I got to be the first to read it because, well truth be told, I pouted. So here goes:

Princess of Glass is a super fun spin on Cinderella. Princess Poppy (she is one of the dancing princesses from Princess of the Midnight Ball) is 16 and sent off to Breton to ease relations after all the Princes died in the previous book. There she encounters adventure and more black magic.

I loved Poppy. She is smart, funny, and able to take care of herself. Strong female characters is one of Jessica's strong points!!!!! Poppy has her own adventure, and for a twin that is something special indeed.

I LOVED this book. I can't wait to pass it on to my daughter (who has to wait til all other interested Inkers have had a turn). The book comes out sometime in May . . . look for it at your local bookstore.

A Great Blog on the Twilight Debate

I had to have two posts today. (I've finally got high speed Internet and a new computer--I'm going crazy.) I am the only Inker who adores and rereads the Twilight Series. J. Scott Savage had a great answer to the debate on Stephenie Meyer here:

Find Your Magic: BPA

This debate reminds me of one thing I learned about in a theatre class I attended recently. You want your audience to not have sympathy for your characters, but EMPATHY. You want them to feel what your characters are feeling. That is a key to a good story for me. Do I feel the emotions being played out on the page? What are some examples of creating Empathy in books you've read?

Back to the blog post: What is your strength in writing? I'm not sure what mine is yet . . . ideas probably. (Let me insert here a quick moral lesson: When you get those incredible ideas, write them down. I had one the other day that I KNEW was going to be amazing, but I didn't write it down and now I can't remember--you can all mourn with me now.) HA HA HA hA Ha

So Sushi Me!

The other night I had someone tell me, "Sushi is disgusting. I tried it and I don't see how anyone can like it. The only people who eat sushi are those trying to be cool."

Now, this statement offended me on two levels. First, because I LOVE sushi. And secondly, because she seemed to imply that I needed to try to be cool.

I'm plenty cool without the sushi folks. Trust me! I've never met a roll that can match me in pure awesomeness. But I digress...

This kind of nonsense is exactly what I posted about last week. We don't all have to enjoy the same things. We don't all have to hate the same things. You certainly shouldn't imply that if someone has a different opinion than you that they are somehow defective (or trying to be cool). No matter how neat I am, in a world full of Debbie's, I'd only be ordinary.

So let's celebrate our differences over a big plate of sushi. And if you don't like sushi then you are a loser with no taste.

Good Lovin'

I like happy endings. I internalize things much more strongly when I read than when I watch a movie or listen to music. Thus, I tend to choose material that doesn't focus on the darker side of the human condition too much. I get enough tragedy on the news.

This week, in the wake of Valentine's Day, I was working on the romantic subplot of my novel, which got me thinking about some of my favorite love stories - in books and movies. I realized several of the best do not end with the couple blissfully in each other's arms, living happily ever after. Namely, Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, Witness, The Age of Innocence, and of course, Romeo & Juliet.

So, although still a sucker for a satisfying, happy ending, I have great admiration for those who can tell the tale of star crossed lovers well, staying true to what is realistic or best for the characters. I would argue that I would have appreciated the resolution of the Twilight series more if Bella would not have turned out to be a supermodel, butt-kicking vampire married to the man of her dreams, but if the couple had instead been driven apart because of their circumstances, or even if one (or both) of them had *gasp* died.

We had a discussion in our writer's group awhile back about how love needs to be in every novel to some degree, even if it's dark and twisted, even if it ends unhappily. Love is such an integral part of human nature, a story just doesn't ring true if it isn't there.

Meeting Richard Hatch

I had the fine opportunity at a conference this past weekend to meet and see a presentation from Richard Hatch, best known for his roles as Apollo in the original Battlestar Galactica and as the terrorist-turned-politician Tom Zarek in the new Battlestar series.

He is one of the most amiable people you'd meet, very kindly answering many of the group's questions, including mine asking about how he got into his role as Tom Zarek--one of the most complex and "gray" characters in the reimagined Battlestar series. He went on to explain how Tom Zarek believed that everything he did was right, that he was something of a Nelson Mandella character, challenging the status quo. Later in the presentation, he also noted that Ronald Moore told the writers of the new Battlestar that Tom Zarek should always speak the truth, no matter how difficult. He pointed out the irony of how Zarek was viewed as a terrorist earlier on in the series, but after the New Caprica occupation (where Zarek's naysayers were forced to commit their own campaign of terrorism against the Cylons), he was seen in a better light as someone who had to do the necessary things. Another interesting point he brought up was that most viewers of the show don't know the background of Tom Zarek: that he blew up the government building on his home planet because the government was despotic and gave no legal or political recourse for the members of its society.

Richard Hatch also showed us the trailer for his original push for a Battlestar sequel, named Battlestar Second Coming. This was originally shown to Universal Studios in a proposal to create a sequel series to the show. While disappointed that the sequel series never caught on, Hatch was approached by Ronald Moore to appear in the new Battlestar as Tom Zarek, and Hatch accepted, even though he would vastly have preferred appearing in a sequel series (instead of a reimagined remake).

Another great aspect of the presentation was Richard Hatch's trailer of his newest project: The Great War of Magellan book series. He told us about the series and how one of his marketing strategies is to create as much of a community for an intellectual property as possible. So it seems he will not only be creating books for the Magellan series, but also graphic novels, websites, paraphernalia, and other mixed media. Hatch is a savvy entrepreneur in his vision of a good story's potential.

Richard Hatch conducts acting and other seminars and presentations, along with a lot of other really neat pursuits. For more info, please check out his main website.