PITCHWARS

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So this is me now - Van Dancing all over the place.

I've got a mentor! And, I'm thrilled!!! If you'd like to meet the incredibly wonderful and super talented Heather Marie!  Pop over to her blog or twitter and check her out over at The Secret Life of Writers.

I am so grateful that she picked me!!! as her mentee.

I don't usually enter contests. Don't know why. I just haven't done them - maybe because of time and the fear of putting myself out there. Who knows? But, whatever the reason, I just haven't done it in the past. And, I can tell you that on 12-12-12 I knew it was going to be a special day...maybe because I was having an End of the World party with my gfriends where we celebrated the End of Days with Margaritas, Munchies and Manicures. But, I had no idea I'd be picked as a mentee!!!

I knew that the teams were going to be posted at 8:00 a.m. EST - that's 5:00 a.m. West Coast time (or what I call "my time").

So, I went to sleep--no problem--but I popped up suddenly at 3:00 a.m.

"Hum," I looked at the clock and thought "the birds don't even get up this early" so I went back to bed.

I woke back up at 6:30 and ran to check my email. Nothing. So, I was sure I wasn't selected. But then I popped over to Brenda Drake's blog to see who the lucky winners were.

And WHOO-HOO! I found my name on the list. I couldn't believe it and had to look twice to be sure it wasn't a dream.

Now, Heather Marie is going to help me get ready for the January pitches. And, after "playing" in the PitchWars, which is what I felt like I was doing because I met so many wonderful writers that I think we all won in this contest (which was put on by the wise and wonderful Brenda Drake), now we move on to the hard work (perfecting our pitches and getting our queries shined up for the next step) the agent round! The agent round begins on January 20th! I know that day is just around the corner and I want to be ready and I'm willing to work hard to get my story prepared.

If you don't know about PitchWars, here's a little blurb about the next round:

 Note: The material for the agent round will be a 3 sentence pitch and the first 250 words of your manuscript. Coaches will read manuscripts and query letters only once and give notes. It is up to the writer to use the notes from their coaches to get the manuscript and query letter in as best shape as they can to send to requesting agents. The coaches will critique the three sentence pitch and first 250 words. The coaches will read them as many times as they deem necessary. In no way will writers expect the coaches to read the manuscript and query letter more than once or the pitches more than twice.

·        January 20: Coaches will submit shined pitches to the contest email.

·        January 23 and 24: Agents will read and make requests on the pitches they like (it is likely that not all participants will get requests).

·        January 25: We'll announce the team with the most requests and who will take home the winning prizes (an amazon gift card for each).

I'm hoping you readers will be there to support me in this journey through the path toward publication! I can use all the cyber-hand holding I can get.