Road Trip Wednesday -- Oh, my bad!

Road Trip Wednesday is a ‘Blog Carnival,’ where YA Highway's contributors post a weekly writing- or reading-related question that begs to be answered. In the comments, you can hop from destination to destination and get everybody's unique take on the topic.

This Week's Topic:

What's the biggest writing / querying / publishing mistake you've made?

 

 

Well this should be entertaining.

 

This was a few years back, right about the time I finished my very first manuscript.  Oh, yeah.  You know where this is going.

 

I have a friend locally who writes as well.  She writes adult fantasy, and we like to get together and write on occasion.  So, we planned to go to a local writers conference.  My friend was already a member of the writers group putting the conference on -- so she nabbed us a couple of pitch sessions with agents.  Awesome, right?

 

--insert freakout--

 

The agent was lovely and sweet and funny and easy to talk to, but I realized about the time I walked into that room that I wasn't close to ready for this.  I mean, I had spent the few months prior scouring the internet and trying to learn everything I could, but -- yeah.  Not. Ready.

 

Things turned out alright -- the agent liked my concept and requested to read pages.  I went home and, lesson learned, truly immersed myself into the world of publishing.    

 

Yes, the agent ultimately rejected that MS.  Of course.  But some good came from it -- number one, I realized what I needed to do if I was serious about going after publication.  And two, I made a personal contact with one of the nicest agents in the industry.  That agent will forever have my respect for treating newbie me so kindly.

I still cringe when I think about it though.  ;)

 

What about you?  Made any cringe-worthy mistakes?