I Have Confidence

I know I haven't blogged in a little bit but there's been a lot going on.  Every day I'd say to myself  "I'm going to blog tonight" and then it suddenly be 1am and time for bed.

My sister is flying to California in a few weeks to visit our older brother and the packing has begun.  If I hadn't stepped in every single shirt she packed would have been a Disney t-shirt.  That's all fine and dandy for the day they go to Disneyland but something else might be better for other outings.  Now there's a little more variety such as Broadway t-shirts and a Celtic Thunder t-shirt.  And some nicer clothes as well.

#pitchwars came to a close for me on September 3.  I was not chosen by one of the mentors nor did I get much in the way of feedback.  However, I did make a lot of new friends and contacts.  New betas and new cheerleaders.  And I hope some of the participants found something worthwhile in me as well.

Yesterday was #pitmad where from 8am-8pm you can tweet a pitch for your manuscript twice per hour.  If an agent or publisher favorites your tweet it means they are requesting more information.  In the days leading up to the event I crafted more than thirty tweets.  After bouncing them off friends and other #pitmad participants I narrowed the list down to sixteen.  I had them open in an email so I could copy and paste throughout the day.  Some people scheduled their tweets but I opted not to do that.  I'd rather have the ability to switch things up if I chose to.  Reuse one that I had gotten some attention and such.  At the end of the day I ended up with four favorites though only two seemed useful to me.  One of them was a small Christian press and I know that would not work for either of us.  I've already sent off the requested materials to the two and now we're back to playing  the waiting game.

#pitmas is coming up in December and I'll probably take part in that.  Other than the two queries from #pitmad I've also sent two more to agents.  For now I'm back in the query pool - I had been holding back until the results of #pitmad and #pitchwars came through.  Now that they're over it's full speed ahead.

I go back into the slush pile with an updated query and edited synopsis in hand.  Hopefully now someone out there will see something they like and request a full or partial manuscript.  For now that's the goal - getting in the door rather than just being shown out.

Let's do this.