This Friday, September 9, I’m attending the Sacramento Writing Workshop!

In February of 2015, I attended a four-day writer’s conference in San Francisco.

At February’s conference, I signed up for their three-minute speed dating with an Agent. I was sure at least one of them would fall in love with my story. I thought my memoir was so stranger-than-fiction that the agents would understand the masses would be lining up to buy the book the day it came out. 

I was wrong…

Adoption is a memoir topic that has been covered extensively, but not foster care adoption.

I know, because I’ve looked for these stories…

Anyway, that February, as seems to be the story of my life, I got knocked off my high horse, fed a humility pill (it was bitter) and realized I really had a lot to learn.

For Friday’s workshop, I signed up to speak with two agents, a ten-minute session each.

I’ve connected with one of them, Jen Chen Tran on Twitter. By this I mean that I Follow her. And when I tweet a question to her, she answers. She reps a lot of memoirs but makes it clear that she wants a large, solid platform.

By that she means 10,000 or more followers on each social media site.

I don’t even have 10,000 when I combine this and my other blog, Twitter account, and Facebook page!

Though if you click on the above links and follow me, you’ll be helping me hit that number… 

For that reason, it is extremely unlikely she will follow up on my pitch. However, unlike at the SF Writer’s Conference, my objective for securing these agent slots is not to land a deal.

Well, it’s not my only objective.

My objective is to speak 1:1 with an agent, utilize her time and expertise to help me navigate this crazy, I’m a writer but I wanna be an author world.

If I look at it like that, I won’t be disappointed when (if) the agents don’t request a query letter.

I won’t have to get knocked over and bruised black and blue.

I won’t have to swallow a pill that tastes so horrible I want to cry.

And at the end of the day, I will have attained more knowledge.

As I’ve said about my Bachelor’s in Psychology: I haven’t used my degree to get a job, but it wasn’t wasted because I learned something.