Life After #PitchWars

The mentors have spoken and the mentees have been chosen. It was exciting, informative, and somewhat grey hair inducing! It was totally worth it.

This was my first attempt at PitchWars. I didn’t get a mentor, but I gained so much more than what I thought would be offered during this contest. I assumed I’d have the opportunity to work with an established author, let him/her dissect my manuscript, pointing out all the no-nos my first novel surely contains. Instead, I received encouragement, writer friends, and irreplaceable advice. It was so much more than a simple contest.

My first reaction when seeing The List was that of disappointment. I won’t lie and say it didn’t hurt—because it did. Am over it now? Yep. Will I survive? Duh. Will I keep writing, editing, and searching for my perfect agent? Bet your pretty pants I will! And the rest of you will too. I sincerely hope you will because more than writing I love reading. Keep going, get that book published and let me get lost in your words!

I’ve compiled some of my favorite tweets over the last few days of PitchWars. You’ll find them below—mixture of mentors and mentees, giving, sharing, teasing, and having a damn good time!

Last, but not least, I’ll leave you with a quote. The movie was on earlier. Yeah, yeah, I could’ve found an author to quote or some witty tidbit about surviving what feels like the aspiring author's apocalypse. I didn’t. Read it. Enjoy it.

Can I get a Hallelujah!

Amy Reichert ‏@aereichert

I've been getting the best thank you notes from #PitchWars. You people have the right attitudes-and that's why you'll succeed! ((hugs))

 

Kimberly A. Hill ‏@Arborwriter

I now realize I've been relying on my query to say what needs to be said in the first page. Thank you #pitchwars It's all coming together!

 

Gail Nall ‏@gailecn

I signed up to be a mentor b/c I wanted to read everything you sent me. Thank YOU for choosing me! 3/3 #pitchwars

 

Natasha Raulerson ‏@ThirtyNerdy

I'm crazy proud of all people who submitted! It's a step in the right direction! Don't be sad. Take what you've learned, use it #PitchWars

 

Melissa Menten ‏@MelissaMenten  

@brooksbenjamin Thanks for your #pitchwars feedback. I can't imagine reading all the entries, but then to make a helpful comment? Awesome!

 

Kelly Siskind ‏@KellySiskind

@WriteAsRain_ If you wake up with a bag over your head DON'T PANIC. I have decided to kidnap you so we can hang out. #PitchWars

 

Dan Koboldt ‏@DanKoboldt

OMG, on the #PitchWars hangout, @brendadrake is juggling a huge glass of wine and what appears to be a ferret

 

Rae (Huffaker) Chang ‏@RaeAChang

#PitchWars tweeps, I'll be joining you for #pitmad in a week & @Dannie_Morin and I will have a place for you to get help with your pitch

 

Dan Malossi ‏@Danmalossi

#pitchwars Even though I missed out this time around, the four mentors have given such amazing feedback. So worth it. Thanks @brendadrake!

 

Susan Crispell ‏@SBCrispell  

A HUGE thank you to @brendadrake for being amazing and running #PitchWars and to all the mentors for being so generous with your time!

 

Nikki Roberti ‏@Nikki_Roberti

Thank you for organizing #PitchWars @brendadrake! Best part has been making new author friends

 

Dystopian vs Post-Apocalyptic

Isn’t dystopian fiction the same as post-apocalyptic fiction? I’ve asked myself this many times and I’m still not sure my answer is correct, because someone will inevitably disagree with me at some point. And that’s okay!

The two genres are very much alike. The worlds within dystopian and post-apocalyptic novels do not resemble the world we are accustomed to waking to. No…life is very different in these books. Maybe the world has changed in some way or maybe the people have changed. It’s why I love reading and writing in these genres.

The easiest way I distinguish the two is time and circumstances. Did a natural disaster, virus, or war cause the world and people to change? If so, this would be classified as apocalyptic/post-apocalyptic. We often see the cause of the world’s change in these novels. Susan Beth Pfeffer’s LIFE AS WE KNEW IT is a good example of post-apocalyptic fiction.

But what if the world is already different? What if a new government has been implemented? What if the survivors of whatever have moved on with their lives, now struggling against something other than the world coming to an end? These novels fall into the dystopian category. THE HUNGER GAMES by Suzanne Collins is the perfect example of dystopian.

As a writer it’s important for me to know the difference in the two. I don’t want to classify my work as something it’s not. But as a reader, I could care less, because the genre may interest me, but what keeps me reading is the believability of characters and a voice that lets me connect.

The Agent Hunt

Unless we authors decide to undertake the task of self-publishing, we’ve all found ourselves in this position—the position of seeking the perfect agent. Upon starting this journey, I didn’t think it would be so difficult. I was wrong—in a big way!

First, I had to find agents that represented YA. The good news: Lots and lots of agents rep YA. The bad news: Not all of them accepted my book’s genre. I couldn’t query every agent seeking YA. That would’ve been a waste of not only my time, but the agent’s time as well. So, I narrowed my list.

And then I realized—I had some favorites. Yep, some of the agents really stuck out. Maybe it was something on their wishlist, twitter, or blog that caught my eye. Whatever the reason, I knew I had a few favorites that I would die to work with. So those went to the top of list. And to be honest, I have yet to query my top three. I’m still testing the query waters J

The Agent Hunt is REAL! It’s hard. And it’s the most important thing I’ll ever do to my manuscript. If I’m going to trust someone with my words, with the characters living in my book, then I want to make sure he/she loves them as much as I do!