For me, day 3 of the annual PNWA Summer Writers Conference was much like day two: back-to-back (times eleven) sessions with the writers whose works I was critiquing.

I got the day off to kind of a poor start by being late for the first appointment. Oops! What can I say; 8:00 AM is darned early to start, and yesterday the first one was at 8:20. I didn’t think to check my schedule for a different start time today. My bad. The scheduled client was really nice about it, though, and was happy to reschedule her consultation during one of my slotted breaks.

Like yesterday, I got to meet and talk with a bunch of interesting people who I would otherwise never have had the chance to interact with. But all morning, I was looking forward to one consultation in particular. This mystery writer, I knew only by the name Mary and by her writing. I couldn’t wait to meet her because her 25 page submission was, hands down, the flat-out best piece of writing I’ve seen outside of print in ... you know what? I can’t think of an unpublished piece of writing I’ve encountered that was better. Not one, and I’ve seen quite a bit. Mary wins.

The thing about Mary is that her writing has got voice. That elusive quality that sets great writers apart from the crowd. It’s the thing that, like former Attorney General Edwin Meese said about pornography, “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.” Mary reached into her subconscious, found a heartbreakingly poignant character named Lil with an incredible life story, and channeled Lil straight onto the page. I have never seen such a strong voice in an unpublished writer before in my life.

So when Mary’s time slot rolled around, in walked someone I’d never have expected: the sweetest little old lady you ever met. I didn’t ask how old she was. It didn’t matter. She sat down, an anxious look on her face. I told her how much I had been looking forward to meeting her. She softened a bit. I told her how I felt about her writing. How beautiful and wonderful it was. She smiled. Her anxiety melted away. She wiped a tear from under one eye.

Writers invest so much of themselves in their writing. Eyes may be the windows to everyone else’s soul, but ink is the window into a writer’s soul. Mary’s soul is there in her writing for all to see. When she sat down at my table, all I could see in her eyes was how much of herself she felt was riding on my opinion.

I’m not quite sure how I feel about that. I am so pleased that I was able to replace her nervousness with validation, send her off with the confidence in her ability that she so richly deserves. But I’ve seen the same look on other faces, too, that same desperate hope for validation, from writers for whom my honest assessment of their work cannot be so glowing. I feel obligated to tell them the truth about their writing as I see it, but at the same time I struggle to do so in a way that encourages them forward. I know that if I deliver the feedback in the wrong way, they’ll leave crushed and never write again. That’s not the goal. I don’t think I want that kind of power over people. I just want to help them.

I hope my feedback helped Mary. And I hope I get to read the rest of her book and work whatever iota of magic I can on it. The economy is hard for all of us lately, and especially on sweet little old ladies with home decorating businesses who can’t find clients right now. Mary told me she can’t pay me. I told her I didn’t care. I’ll work on her book for free if I have to. I just want to read the end of it, and for a little while bask in the glow of amazing writing that I, lucky stiff that I am, have gotten to see before anyone else. I hope she lets me.

Day two of the annual PNWA Summer Writers Conference. I probably did more talking in one single day than I have done in years, and it’ll be a miracle if my voice holds up for tomorrow, but I survived.

I got to play both sides of the fence today: as conference Book Doctor helping aspiring writers learn how to strengthen their books, and as an aspiring writer myself pitching my books to a couple of literary agents. One of my consultations today was with the guy who claims—with some merit, I would say—to be the most widely distributed illustrator on the planet. He’s the guy who illustrates those fold-out safety cards in the back pocket of every airline seat in the world. You know that iconic drawing of the mother with her oxygen mask already in place, helping her child put on the day-glo yellow mask? He did that, and all the rest of them. He and his wife run a whole company that does that. His art is literally all over the world. His art has probably saved lives. How cool is that?

The Book Doctoring is fun. I have to admit, it’s fun, and not just because you meet people who save lives through technical illustration. There were two consultations I did today that I was worried about, because the material was very weak. But my hat is off to the writers, because they brought absolutely the right attitude to the table: a genuine desire to learn, and the maturity to set their ego aside in order to do that. All nine of the writers I spoke with today were that way, really. It’s hard not to have fun when you get to have nine in-depth conversations about a subject you love all in the same day. In the end, everybody left my table knowing what they need to do to put their books in a publishable state, or if not that, at least to take their writing to the next level.

In a nutshell, that’s is the great part about my job. Being able to do that for people is a very satisfying thing indeed.

In the middle of the day I had a break to go pitch my stuff to some agents. The first person I talked with was David Forrer of Inkwell Management. We had a great talk about the young-adult western adventure novel I wrote in 2007. He also suggested that his agency likes to work with freelance book editors like me, so we traded business cards and that was a nice bonus.

The second person I pitched to was Minju Chang, of Bookstop Literary Agency. I actually pitched to her at last year’s conference, so it was nice to see her again. She’s very friendly, and does a great job of putting nervous writers at ease so we can tell her about our books. She wasn’t so keen on the sci-fi novel I pitched her, but she had good feedback for me.

Like Robert Dugoni says, somewhere on my Quotes Page, all of us can always improve our writing. That goes for book doctors too.

I spent the afternoon in consultations with the rest of the day’s clients, one of whom I have been looking forward to talking with for a couple of weeks, ever since I reviewed her submission. (Stephanie, if you’re reading this, I mean you!) I was doubly impressed to learn it was her first novel. First novels (and especially first drafts of first novels) usually have a lot less going for them than hers did. I hope I get to read the rest of the book someday. (Stephanie, if you’re reading this, use that discount code and hire me!)

The evening finished off with dinner in the big ballroom and a keynote speech by thriller-writer Joseph Finder (that’s with a short-i, not a long-i). He gave what is a semi-stock speech for this kind of conference, the “story of how I made it as a writer” speech. But it was a great speech, because he brought a lot of fresh and very funny angles to it from his personal experiences. That man has led an interesting life.

But for me, the capper to the day came right at the very end. All day, here and there, people have been talking with me in the halls to ask more about how I could help them, and after the speech ended, the desserts had vanished, and the scheduled activities ended for the day, I found myself in yet another such conversation with an eager, first-time writer. In the middle of this, conference organizer and PNWA president Pam Binder came up to me and asked if I could help her out.

She said that one of the book doctor clients, who had been assigned to a different person than me, had received a very short and unsatisfactory consultation, and hadn’t felt like he had gotten his money’s worth. Now remember, these people have paid extra to the conference (not to us, alas!) for these book doctor sessions, and many of them have come from quite a long ways off. I’ve got people on my list from Washington D.C., Florida, all over. This half-hour consultation is a big deal for them, because it represents time, money, a lot of effort, in the hopes of getting something of a road-map for where to take their writing career next; to not get that must have been a huge let-down.

Pam looked at me and asked if I could possibly do anything to help.

I looked at her and said “Of course.” So the person will e-mail their material to me, and I’ll give them a do-over. I’m happy to, because whoever they are, and whether their book is awesome or still needs a lot of work, they deserve their money’s worth.

That was the capper for me because Pam, someone I highly respect in the universe of Seattle writing, looked to me for help. I get a lot of positive feedback from the people I’ve done consultations for here at the conference, and from my paying clients as well, but to get a vote of confidence like that from Pam, well, that really left me smiling as I made my way out of the hotel for the evening.