Killer Nashville Writing Conference
I’m in Franklin, TN—about twenty miles outside Nashville—getting ready for tomorrow’s start to the Killer Nashville Writing Conference.
I hope I can sleep (versus tonight turning into a Christmas Eve-scenario where I’m too excited to doze off).
There are lots of reasons for writers to attend conferences. High on the list is meeting other writers and nerding out on story ideas and dreams of grandeur (are you reading this Reese Witherspoon?)
I’ve paid for three roundtable sessions with different literary agents tomorrow, and two on Saturday. I’ve met agents through conferences before, but this is an extra bonus. At the roundtable of five writers and one agent, a volunteer will read the first two pages of my book and the agent will give direct feedback.
Direct feedback? What’s working and what’s not directly from an agent. Wahoo! (see aforementioned Christmas Eve scenario).
If the agents are interested in reading more—great! If the agents don’t like the start of my novel, I’ll know why. That’s actually good too. I can fix broken.
I’ll post my first two pages below. Let me know what you think. I’ll post what the agents had to say tomorrow.
Lyrics & Other Felonies: (Aspiring investigative reporter Reverie Reeb has five days to write a crime story good enough to win her dream job without exposing that she processes the world around her through lyrics.)
Chapter 1
Country music hadn’t killed the woman in the alley. But the drumbeats that escaped from adjacent bars dealt a jarring soundtrack to the Nashville police officer who photographed the body.
Reverie posed behind the safety of her notebook to appear detached and objective, despite the late lunch that churned in her stomach. The last crime she’d covered was a smash and grab at a campus bookstore.
No bodies.
She shivered and recorded the scene. The alley wasn’t open to traffic. Rolling dumpsters alternated sides, backed near the rear doors of bars and restaurants featuring all-day live music. A male voice in the distance sang about second chances. She’d have a hard time disassociating those sounds from the image of the thin figure lying on the dirty brick lane.
A gray sheet covered the body, except for a fluff of mint-green fabric around the woman’s ankles. Shiny silver shoes had tall heels so narrow, it was difficult to believe she could have walked over the cobblestones from the main roadway into the alley without getting stuck.
An investigator in white coveralls set out numbers next to small indistinguishable items around the victim. One officer spoke to a young man in an apron at a kitchen door to her left. Another, his stomach fighting against the tight buttons of his shirt, pushed onlookers back from the yellow crime scene tape. He glanced at her press badge as he passed, then turned back and read aloud, “Reverie Racine Reeb.”
He hummed.
Reverie cringed.
He shrugged his shoulders, then moved away, soft lyrics trailing him, “Reverie Racine, the prettiest baby I’ve ever seen.”
She groaned. The Times policy demanded middle names. She’d never have added Racine. The shadow of her name had followed her since Mom made it the title song on her tenth album.
She didn’t want to be that Reverie Racine—daughter of a ’90s country singer on her umpteenth comeback attempt. She’d make her own mark. And this poor dead woman could help catapult her to the local news position she’d studied hard and gone into serious debt for.
The officer didn’t need to know she interned at The Times for the Home and Garden section.
Alone at the tape barrier, she took in the scene.
A slice of sun hit the sheet draped over the dead woman’s head.
Reverie turned to face the same way and squinted against the light that beamed through the fire escapes clinging to the opposite three-story building. Large angel wings had been spray-painted on the bricks. Perhaps a comforting last view.
The investigator lifted the cover. She lay on her back, one pale arm over her head, the other crooked at the elbow, palm up—an unwanted rag doll.
She should be easy to identify.
A tiara topped the curly blond hair that spilled over her face and neck.
And unlike the thousands of other young women partying in downtown Nashville in cutoffs and cowboy boots, she wore a formal dress that flared, mermaid style, from her thighs to her high-heeled feet.
A melodic hum rumbled in Reverie’s chest. Lyrics broke through her thoughts into song, “Won the night, then lost the fight. Prom Queen. The only body on the scene.”