Monday's #octmadwrite

If you're here as part of the Haunted Writing Clinic, you can find the first page of my YA manuscript, DWARFED, right here. Sorry about the confusion.

I’m supposed to be participating in the October madness write-a-thon (#octmadwrite), a week long blog hop where writers post their writing goals and accomplishments. I’m running very late, so my goal for today will be completing the 15 pages of webcontent I still haven’t started. 

Tomorrow I have more complex goals. I hope to accomplish the following:

• ·         Write 10 pages of web content
• ·         Create a blog post about colostrum and newborn pigs
• ·         Remove all repeated phrases/bad words from the first three chapters of dwarfed
• ·         Create the character profiles for 2 MC’s of my 2012 nanowrimo project

Whew! Tomorrow’s going to be a busy day.

Get Your Pitch On-Ignite

The #PitchOn activities are underway. If you meant to enter the workshops and lost track of the date, don’t panic. You still have time. You only need two things, a completed YA manuscript that’s ready to be pitched to agents, and a 50-70 word pitch to go along with it. Information about how to enter can be found right here.

Do you want to know what you’re up against? You can check out the other pitch’s that have been entered in the workshops by visiting the host blogs.

Entering your pitch shouldn’t be your only interest, you also need to wander around to the participating blogs and leave a comment. For every comment you leave, you have a chance to receive a 10 page critique from one of these great people.

 Sharon Johnston

Larissa Hardesty

Stephanie Diaz

Catherine Scully

Jodie Andrefski

Paula Sangare

Talynn 

Kaitlin Adams.

To date, I’ve gotten 1 pitch.

IGNITE

YA Paranormal Suspense

70,000

In the care of WitWatch—a top-secret witness protection bureau operated by supernatural agents—seventeen-year-old Alison Summers and her fire-wielding Watcher are determined to discover who murdered Ali’s grandmother and prove she’s not crazy. But, when a discharged agent with an antibody to eliminate powers learns Ali possesses the element, Water, she becomes next on his to-cure list.

I’m going to start off by saying that I like the idea behind this story. Based on the premise, it’s something I would pick up and read. However, and this is just my opinion, the pitch could still use some work. To me it’s kind of muddled, and a tiny bit confusing. My favorite part of the pitch is the final sentence, which seems to be the heart of the pitch, though I’m not sure about starting the sentence with but. I think it would be just as good if you started with when a discharged. 

My big problem with this pitch is the first sentence. I think it needs to be rewritten. This is just my opinion, but I think you could drop the part about WitWatch, and launch into how Alison Summers is trying to solve the mystery of her grandmother’s murder, and add a few words about how she’s going about it, and the challenges she’s encountering, attach that to your current second sentence, and have a powerful pitch.

Good luck!

Write Club

Well I did it, I banged out a 500 word short story (this morning) and emailed it to the people running the Write Club this year. Now all I have to do is sit back and see if it gets selected for head to head challenge.

Wish me luck!