Round up of the Conference

So, Saturday. I had my pitch to Cindy Hwang of Berkeley Press on Saturday morning and this pretty much saw me pacing around my room, reading my pitch out loud and then generally wandering around morning tea unable to concentrate on anything. Finally, finally the magic time of 10.55 arrived and I was safely in my seat outside the room trying to get my heart to slow down and doing deep breathing exercises. Yes. I was in that much of a state. Over a pitch. I know. Useless.

Anyway, I stuttered and stumbled through it only to look up from the table and find Cindy grinning at me. "I'm really interested in this," she said. "Er, pardon," was my graceful reply! But a request for a full manuscript it was.

Of course I am presently having a major stress out over the plot, and am in re-writing hell, but hopefully I'll have it to her in a couple of weeks and then the fingers crossed waiting begins! Yikes.

So, floated through lunch in a dream. Had another Margie Lawson workshop in the afternoon, very useful (okay, I wasn't really concentrating, I was dreaming about ginormous book deals) and then in the evening we had the awards dinner. Lots of excellent food, nice wine and a great deal of clapping.

Unfortunatly on Sunday morning I had terrible news. A dear family friend had died of cancer after a long battle. I missed the morning sessions, and just hung out in my room getting my head around it all. These things are always such a shock, even when you know they're coming. Tottered downstairs for lunch, really only becuase I had to check-out, but then in the afternoon I had a workshop on story-telling.

The storytelling workshop was hosted by the ever bubbly Imelda Evans, and it was fascinating. Who knew there was a way to tell stories. Needless to say, I was not exactly good at it, but I've been practicing on the kids and they love it.

Then it was more hanging out in the bar until it was time to catch my train back to Sydney. Loved the train, even more this time as on the way home we were at the very end of the train, away from the damn whistle and I slept all the way.

Brissy next year.

Can't wait.