This week, the five lovely authors at the Debutante Ball blog are heading “into the dark” to talk about the times most writers would rather forget: the difficult times, when writing–and rejection–hurts the most. In solidarity with my Deb sisters, and to encourage this year’s #PitchWars applicants, I thought I’d revisit my own darkest days — the long, dark potty break of my soul. June 15, 2011 was my mother’s birthday. We spent it together in San Diego, right before the start of the Historical Novel Society conference. After our celebration, Mom hopped a train to her home in Malibu,
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Pitch Wars – and What Makes “No” So Hard
Many of my readers know I’m one of the mentors in the 2013 Pitch Wars competition organized by the amazing Brenda Drake. For those unaware, the situation in a nutshell, is that during December a group of published authors act as mentors for authors seeking representation. In January, a group of agents review the pitches written by the authors and their mentors and may (and hopefully do) decide to review the authors’ manuscripts. TL;DR: published authors helping other authors hopefully catch an agent’s attention. WOO! Last week, the pitch wars applicants submitted queries and sample pages to the mentors of their choice.
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