Toward the end of 2020, my book club read the book You Are a Bada** by Jen Sincero. If you’ve read another one of my posts and seen reference to this, my apologies. I have since been a little obsessed with a lot of the concepts she preaches. I’ll also take this moment to apologize to my children for our commitments to healthy(er) eating, and to my husband for having to pick up a few extra shifts with those sugar-starved hooligans while I venture out to kick butt. But the point is, butt-kickery is pumping through my veins, even if I’m a little wide-eyed and misdirected while I rush into battle.

While there are many concepts in her book that infuse the reader with adrenaline, by far the most resonant point for me at this point in my life was the idea of manifesting good things for yourself. I’ll say this once, then I’ll bury this blog post so no one can ever prove I said it: I am (in small part) a HIPPIE—at least to the extent that I’m really starting to drink this kool-aid about “manifesting.”

(While I type this, a hummingbird is buzzing by my chair. No joke. Point proven.)

You may be following our family’s journey. I’ve talked a lot about how Rhett is in residency, which means he’s tired, overworked, and so am I. I spent a good amount of time just trying not to drown. But I’m starting to believe it’s possible to “not drown” while also enjoying the hectic treading of water. And those treads make waves. And those waves bring a lot more to life than just oxygen from keeping my head above water.

Enough with the metaphors. Here’s the deal. When I got sick of drowning, I manifested myself out of my misery and decided I was going to see some things come into my life that meant something to ME at the end of the day. So I jumped into my writing with both feet. Sorry Netflix, it’s backseat time.

Right on time to kick me into high gear, I received feedback from a beta reader who had taken a while to read Vein and Stone. (You know who you are 😈 and you clearly have perfect timing!) She shredded my beloved ending in the best way. I had something to work on. I revised.

While revising, it occurred to me out of the blue (manifesting puts your mind in the right place…) that I really should have a presence on Twitter. I dove in, edited my profile, and tweeted a few things nobody cared about. #foreveralone

I soon “stumbled upon” (manifested upon?) the #writingcommunity hashtag, which opened my eyes to an incredibly supportive and knowledgeable group of people I could relate to, gain knowledge from, and have panic attacks with (you know, whenever I started querying).

What is this they are talking about? Something with some weird name…#PitMad? How do I look up what a hashtag means? When did I get so old?

Turns out it’s a pitching contest where you can tweet up to 3 pitches for your book (280 characters each max) and you risk absolutely nothing in doing it. It was a WHOLE MONTH away, so in keeping with my positive trajectory, I thought, “why not?” All I needed was a finished, polished manuscript I believed was the best work I would ever do, and a few measly pitches? I mean, who has a blindfold I can borrow?

Okay, here are a few things you need to know about #PitMad:

1. It is not a WHOLE MONTH away. It is breathing down your neck, and abides by no mere mortal calendar.
2. 280 characters = zero characters. The best way to prepare for the exercise of fitting 110k words worth of intricately woven plot and beautiful character development into that amount of characters is to go out, buy a mason jar, fill it with pebbles first, sand next, water to fill the crevices, and then smash the whole thing with a boulder. Good luck.
3. You should probably also write a synopsis, because some maniacal agents MIGHT ask for one IF they like your post.
4. Beware of beta readers.

Just before I discovered PitMad, I sent my manuscript out to two more beta readers. How did I find them?

1. Answered a pathetic call I put on instagram, something like, “Please help a struggling artist by reading my super-awesome novel. I promise you’ll probably like it…”
2. Would you believe I roped this guy in after stopping him on his run because I thought he was listening to the Writing Excuses podcast? I guess I was a little desperate to find another writing nerd…because it was definitely just a political podcast. And he definitely left that conversation thinking he signed up to proofread a chapter or two. Sucker…

I told myself these lovely “volunteers” would supply the last round of feedback before I started pitching. Check out how right I was. The first beta reader read the book in 36 hours, and gave excellent feedback. That feedback even included some positive words like “good story, easy to read, characters I could cheer for.” I love her. My second beta reader is the one I feel bittersweet about, and here’s why.

His feedback was detailed, on point, completely accurate, and even filled in some holes I had been agonizing over since the beginning. I mean, you hate this guy, right? It gets better. He finished reading it Monday night, three days before I was to have the manuscript polished for PitMad, and he called me for what can only be described as a 90 minute, on point, completely accurate slaughter fest. Every word out of his mouth took an hour of sleep away from me that week, and I will never be able to thank him enough.

I slept for about 15 hours total over the next three days. At 1 AM Thursday morning, T-4 hours to PitMad, I closed my laptop, having done all I could do, having double checked my scheduled tweets for the next day, and slept.

Next post: PitMad Pandemonium – Putting My Pitches Where My Mouth Is