Muse & the Marketplace Day 3: Sunday
First of all, I am absolutely devastated that the Muse is over. I’ve had such an amazing weekend! I picked up so many helpful craft tips for what is soon to be my second draft of Hand Magic, like way more than I expected. The best workshops had me actively shifting the Google doc around during the workshop. Inspiration and discovery were coming at me so hard!
I guess I should talk about the actual day. It started with breakfast at the hotel at 9:15! I actually got the venue early?
Here I am reading the absolutely blinding menu.
The actual conference started at 9:45 am with an Agent Insiders panel in the Grand Ballroom. A tidbit of wisdom I thought was really great was that some agents actually like seeing smaller, more obscure comp titles in query letters. This tells the agent that the author reads widely and with great depth. Which…makes so much sense??? Anyone can comp Shadow and Bone, anyone can comp His Dark Materials. Those tell you nothing at all about the author. But can anyone comp Bone Weaver? Can anyone comp The Shadow War? Hell no! I mean God only knows what it indicates for the book’s marketability, but a book you successfully query and sub to editors will release like a year and a half later anyway. The market will be different at that point. And if an agent is familiar with your more obscure comps, well…that’s a pretty good indicator they’ll be interested in your work. What a great insight.
After the Agent Insiders panel, I went to my first workshop of the day. I’d signed up for Social Media for Authors, but switched to The Query Letter because I’ve really been struggling with my query letters.
My next and final workshop of Muse was entitled You’re In a Cult! Group Dynamics, Societies, and Character in Stories. Excellent workshop. The presenters had great energy and passion, and so much information on their slides that my only real quibble is that I didn’t have enough time to take it all down. Hand Magic invokes the classic magical military trope, and as we know, the military is a cult. The exercise at the end, Make Your Own Cult!, was so unbelievably helpful and generative in expanding the norms and groupthink of this magical military that I am genuinely blown away.
Then of course, sadly and tragically, we all reconvened in the Grand Ballroom for Closing Remarks and surprise petits fours and coffee. The remarks were lovely and meaningful. Dariel, the GrubStreet representative, left us with some questions to write down. A plan, basically. Here’s mine:
What at this very moment would you consider your next success as a writer?
Answer: For my story’s plot and character journey to interlock seamlessly and in a tight, cathartic way.
What are you going to do, next step, to do this?
Answer: Outline less, write more. Write while it still feels alive and exploratory. Do the beginning last.
The “do the beginning last” part is something I’ve been thinking about for awhile. My novel’s inner journeys have changed completely, so the set-up in the opening is going to change too. Due to grant and residency applications and also winning some critiques in a publishing auction for Palestine, I’ve been honing the hell out of my existing first four chapters, but I’m not going to do that anymore. I know they’re going to be rewritten, and they’ll be totally different. The horse is about to die; no point in wasting energy flogging it further.
I cherish my plan. I’m treasuring it. And since my Updates for Hand Magic doc has reached 50 pages and I’m slowing down on adding things to it, that means Draft Two is drawing near. Action time is approaching!
After the closing speech, I tried to make Muse last as long as possible by talking to people until the last possible second. In the end, I ended up at the last remaining table of writers in an empty ballroom. I wish I’d taken a picture of us. But then it was 3 pm, and I took the train home and lost consciousness.
Closing thoughts from Ula Cafe in Jamaica Plain as I try to organize my workshop notes, handouts, and business cards, as well as put library holds on all of the book recommendations I got. When I signed up for Muse, I was expecting a great, fun weekend of hanging with writers and networking. And Muse was most certainly that! I loved talking to all of the writers, presenters, and agents. Shop Talk with Kiki Nguyen and Lucy Cleland was most definitely a highlight. I hope I can leave feedback somewhere to tell the GrubStreet people how great Shop Talk was, it seemed to be a win with everyone I spoke to.
What I wasn’t expecting from Muse was to come out of the weekend with a legitimately better novel-in-progress. The craft workshops Dynamics of Opposition and You’re in a Cult were amazingly useful! I was actively changing my novel as the presenters were speaking! My character arcs are going to be tight and well-connected to the greater plot and the power structures of my world are going to feel real and vibrant. I feel so lucky I got to do the Muse and very grateful for the scholarship GrubStreet so graciously gave me. Hot Revision Summer is going to be amazing!
Happy writing everyone, and thanks so much for the support.
xx Claire
