Pitching at Iron Springs

One of the many useful things that happened at iron Springs is that Spencer Ellsworth, an agent for the Lori Perkins Agency, did pitch role-plays with us. Being the severe introvert that I am, I hate live pitches more than anythng. Hate hate hate. But this was pitching to a guy in my writing group who I've never not seen looking like he just got out of bed. He doesn't represent friends, so it's not I even needed to impress him, and we were surrounded by a bunch of freaks saturating the room with dirty jokes.
Nevertheless, I had shadows of anxiety. Jay yelled at me, "think on your feet!" but I hid in the bathroom while i condensed my Martinian epic down to a paragraph.

Jay showed us all how easy it was, being casual and conversational. Pitching would be way easier if we could all have him sitting behind us twisting all our awkward blahdy blah into a sentence of pure gold.

When my turn came, I was still internally fussing over how I'd explain how three princesses, a prince, a sorta god-king and a doomed empire would get squished into a few words without sounding stupid. But, after the first sentence, Spencer started asking questions and things clicked into place. I covered one princess first, and then he was all, well what about xxx? and I could say, "well, there's princess #2 who..." I went brain-dead when I got asked about how the god-king thing worked, or how he could make his eldest daughter a man without using magic. Fortunately, San shouted out, "like Japan! Hatsheput!"

Why can't everyone have co-pitchers? :-P

Disney, now with more rape!

From this article on SF Scope:

"Later this year, a new series produced by Sam Raimi and based on Wizard's First Rule, Goodkind's first book, will be syndeicated by Disney's ABC Television Domestic Syndication Division."

To which renatus said, "Gee, I wonder how they'll fit in all the rape!"