Platform, Publishing & Publicity in Your Pajamas

Welcome to our very first First Pages episode! In this new series, we'll be discussing the most interesting first pages we can get our hands on--YOURS! We'll ask agents and editors to join us in finding the lessons in these pages that not only improve this work--but give you ideas for your own. Want to submit a page for consideration? Send it to [email protected]. We're joined this week by the lovely and talented literary agent Linda Camacho of the Prospect Agency. You can view her class, How To Write A Manuscript That Gets and Keeps Everyone's attention, in The Manuscript Academy's A La Carte classes section: http://manuscriptacademy.com/a-la-carte-classes/ For your reference (if you'd like to read along at home), here's the first page we'll be discussing this week: Strawberry Season I pick up the gun making sure not to ruin my new manicure and pull the carnival rifle to my chest, peering down the barrel at the long rows of colors until I see the first yellow star. Just like at target practice. Thank you, Dad! Brace the legs. Grip the ground. Take a deep centering breath. Give my hips a little swirl to the beat of the music pumping its way through the Sagadahoc Strawberry Festival. And boom! Bull’s eye. “Two more to go!” I turn to Renee, my oldest friend in Maine and the most down to earth chick I know, and say, “I’m going to bring home a two-foot strawberry.” I gesture to the obscene looking overripe stuffed fruit hanging from a large hook in the ceiling. Renee raises unplucked brows underneath fringy bangs. “Just what you need... at the blueberry farm.” She leans in close and whispers, “Seriously, all of these games are rigged. Don’t waste your money. If you waited tables with me at The Muffin, you wouldn’t be wasting it all on this.... ridiculousness.” “Play with me! Live a little! ” I raise the gun in the air. “Come on, you know you want to.” “I’ve gotta go to the bathroom.” “You picking the Port-O-Potty over my mission?” Renee points past the tilt-a-whirl, toward the line that extends almost all the way around the Fun House. “You are a total freak. Stay right here. The cell service is horrible. If I lose you, I might not be able to find you again. And trust me, it’s a long walk back home.” I give her a cheeky wink. “You are a freak, California girl,” Renee says before shoving both hands into her sweatshirt and heading into the crowd.