The Mad Dash
With the Pitch Wars success of Flint Area Writers’ member K.C. Vanderkarr, found here, I signed up to participate this year. I found myself pulling late night editing sprees, reading multiple blog posts on how to make your query better, and exploring a forum that provided a place to connect with other hopefuls.
I found myself fascinated with the Twitter Pitch Wars community. Plenty of writers offered free critiques for queries and first chapters. Many mentors posted numerous times about the quality of submissions.
When this year’s numbers were announced, my entry faced stiff competition. 41% of the entrants (1,402) applied to the Adult category. Which statistically placed me in competition with 150 other manuscripts on average. Only one would be chosen per mentor. However, entrants picked four possible mentors, so some of my picks ended up with 250 + requests.
What’s interesting to note is that the mentee hopefuls have been super supportive of one another while we wait. There’s been requests for partners to critique, writing sprints, humorous gifs, and games.
With the odds against me, I ended up taking away a lot great experiences. I can edit to deadline. I learned a lot about queries. Positive attitudes during the face of impending rejection helped me not only with networking, but also help strengthen my resolve to keep at writing, editing, submitting.
Stay tuned for more updates on Melodie's submission! And if you would like to start preparing for next year's Pitch Wars, come join us this Friday, September 14 at 7pm at Baker College in Flint. Check the website for more updates!
