Writing – Janet fisher

Another Fine Conference

September 16, 2025September 17, 2025Janet Fisher

Just back from a great writers conference in Seattle put on by the Pacific Northwest Writers Association (PNWA). Here I am on the last day with Pam Binder, PNWA President and program director of this annual event. Every year she puts together another fabulous conference with her excellent team.

*Pam Binder, PNWA President, conference program director, on the left, me on the right.*

When I went downstairs looking for an I-was-there photo to add to my comments on the 2025 conference I was hoping I might find Pam to get her picture, and there she was at the registration desk, happy to oblige. I also wanted to thank her one more time for coming to my rescue in the pitch session.

These conferences offer a chance for authors to meet agents and editors face to face and pitch their projects to them. It’s always upbeat at these PNWA conferences, everybody encouraging each other to do their best. I think that atmosphere starts at the top. An award-winning New York Times bestselling author, Pam knows the business, and she’s always ready to help an author reach the next level.

*Bohonagh Stone Circle, West Cork, Ireland*

I pitched my newest novel set in ancient Ireland featuring the People of the Stones, those mysterious stone circles and other megaliths scattered across Ireland and Britain’s west coast and on down the Atlantic seaboard.

In my story it’s 750 B.C. and the Celts wouldn’t have been in Ireland yet, but we know where they were–in Hallstatt, Austria, so my protagonist has to go there.

The goal for the author pitching an agent or editor is to get a request for material, a few chapters maybe, or 50 pages, or, best of all, the full manuscript. I’m happy to say I got a positive response from every pitch. But it wasn’t entirely simple.

Imagine the setup. All of the authors who’ve signed up for a particular block of time are led into a room where the agents and editors are sitting behind a very long table. The authors get in line for a person they want to pitch to, and each gets four minutes to describe their project and convince that person to ask for part or all of it. At the end of your four minutes a bell rings and you have to skedaddle because you don’t want to crimp the time for the person in line behind you.

So I was pitching one person and we were having an extended conversation when the bell rang. She handed me her business card and said I could stay a bit to finish the conversation because no one was behind me. But then someone did come up behind and I hurried to leave. I went out into the hall and realized I had no idea what the person I just pitched wanted from me. Maybe she told me but in the confusion I didn’t hear it. Did she want to see any of my work? I didn’t know. So in somewhat of a daze I wandered down the hall to the registration desk, where a man asked if he could help me. I saw Pam Binder looking through some papers and said, “I think I need Pam.”

I told her what had happened. She thought about it a minute, then said, “You need to go back in and get in her line again and ask her.”

Pam didn’t send me. She led me. And with her as my escort I did exactly as she said. The person greeted me and answered with enthusiasm, “I want to see the full manuscript. I want to read this.”

Yay! Now, I’m not giving away names. That’s for later, if it works out in the long run. But pitching is a challenge. Encapsulating your book into a few words that pique a desire to read it. And these positive moments are bits of gold. Thank you, Pam.

With hugs to send me off, Pam took this goodbye picture of me in my signature hat.

Happy. Optimistic. Glad for a few more bits of gold.

Website Updated

December 6, 2015November 30, 2022Janet Fisher

With new books on the way, the time had come for a website update. And since I was visiting my webmaster, my daughter Christiane, that worked out well. First, we had to change the release date for The Shifting Winds from April to March, since it’s coming out a month earlier than planned. And we had to show it’s availability for pre-orders. With that done, we added an Excerpt so you can read a few paragraphs of the story. Then there were new books to talk about. Today we added a description.

The above photo I took some years ago shows Britain’s famous Stonehenge, which figures in the newest writing project, Book Five of the Golden Isles Series. The book is called Webs of Stone. You’ll find a description on the newly revised Books page. Up until now I’ve shown only five books for the series because I wasn’t sure if I had ideas enough for a book for this 16-year period in Ireland between the end of Book One and the beginning of the final book. That gap parallels events in the Mediterranean at that time, events shown in Book Four, but what was going on in Ireland then? [Note: The Books page has been updated yet again since the writing of this blog post, so the series in late 2022 has eleven titles.]

My muse was slow to visit, but when I took a Thanksgiving trip to Kansas City to visit Christiane and my granddaughter Calliope, inspiration struck. My muse talked to me. It happens in odd ways sometimes. I was searching for a hideout for my outlaw character somewhere north of Stonehenge (which I call the Great Stone Circle of Wessex in the book). And I wanted mountains. Where would I find mountains in England? Would I have to go as far as the Scottish Highlands? That’s a long way from Wessex when you’re walking or riding a pony. And I’d been in the Scottish Highlands. When you’re used to the Cascades and Rockies they seem like rolling hills. Maybe Wales? I’d seen some real mountains there. I clicked the “terrain” figure on Google maps and found the Lakes District in northern England. Then with a click on “street view” I found myself in rugged, craggy, stone-strewn mountains with steep dropoffs down to lovely lakes. Perfect! I could see myself there, my characters. And the story took off in my mind.

The photo above shows another stone circle in near silhouette. This is the circle I chose for the home circle of the Golden Eagle Clan, the central clan for both Book One and Book Five. It’s the Bohonagh Circle near Rosscarbery in Ireland. For me it’s the Golden Eagle Circle. I was lucky enough to spend several days traipsing around these pillars and the vicinity back in 2004 when I traveled to Ireland with my good friend Tilly Engholm. She was my next-door neighbor in Portland then, an avid traveler, and we had a great time on this trip–although as I wandered from circle to circle, she began to weary of stones. Once she sighed and asked, “We’re going to go see more rocks, aren’t we, Janet?” And I had to admit we were. I do love the stone circles and the power I feel in them. Fortunately, Tilly was agreeable.

I wrote Book One, Whisper of Wings, that year. Since then, I’ve spent most of my time focused on Crete, where Books Two through Four are centered. It’s lovely to be experiencing Ireland again–and England, with a few scenes on the coast of Brittany and in what is now Portugal.

I’m excited that a new story is taking off and look forward to immersing myself in it. If you don’t hear from me as often in the next few weeks, that’s where I’ll be–Ireland and the High Lakes and the plains of Wessex and those other places–from roughly 1406 B.C. to 1390 B.C., exploring the mysterious circles and other rocks scattered over the British Isles and Western Europe like interlaced webs of stone.

Check out the revisions on my website. Cheers!

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First Daffodil ~ First Scenes

February 14, 2015February 14, 2015Janet Fisher

It appears to be a time for beginnings. My first daffodil of the season opened up. And I began writing my first scenes for the new novel. I love daffodils because they give me hope of life emerging again in the spring. Now my new book is taking life.

After receiving input from my muse for many weeks, I finally put it all into some semblance of order with an outline. From that I write.

By the way, I found an interesting tidbit of information a short time ago. As mentioned in my last post, all this recent input from my muse started when I changed the name of the protagonist for this new book, which is set in ancient times on the Greek isle of Crete. I usually like to know what the names of my characters mean. It affects my feelings about them. There are many sites you can google for your baby names and some of those offer meanings. I had clicked a few sites already on the new name for the protagonist, but went back to check again and came up with a new site.

This new site told me the name I had chosen, with a slight spelling variation, was the name of one of the nine Greek muses. I did sit back in my seat suddenly, reading that. Who knew? No wonder she’s been sending me material. 🙂

Anyway, I’ve enjoyed the whole process, except for some short nights of sleep. Now I’m thrilled to be writing.

I know some writers claim you have to write every day. It doesn’t really work that way for me. I see each book as a project with different phases, several of which involve writing in some sense–from note taking to revisions. But the most intense phase, the part where I step into the world of my characters and live it through them, is the first rough draft. That’s the real writing part to me. It’s where I am now. And loving it.

Cheers!

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