#NestPitch

I am SO excited to be a part of this fun contest!

#NestPitch is the brainchild of the wonderful @NikVukoja (go follow her on Twitter) and it's BIG. 

Here's what it's all about:

 

In central and northern Croatia, the day before Easter, the children make Easter Nests for the Easter Bunny. (I love this!!) They collect leaves, grass, twigs, flowers and then make their “nest” -- and this is where the Easter Bunny places Easter-Egg-Presents. The children go to bed that eve wondering if the Easter Bunny will like or love their nest, because the best nest gets the best and biggest eggs!

And that’s the basis of Nestpitch -- but in our contest, the ‘nests’ are the author’s pitches, and the ‘Easter Bunnies’ are the agents – get it? Great!

Who can submit to Nestpitch?

This year we have changed things a bit, therefore even if you participated in Nestpitch 2014 you will still need to read the below.

This year we are NOT accepting Picture Books. We are accepting MG, YA, NA and Adult FICTION ONLY. 

We are accepting all genres within these categories. If your novel is either Erotica or Christian, please state this. For example: Adult Romance (Erotica) or YA Historical Romance (Christian).

We support diversity and strongly encourage authors with GLBT, geographic, cultural and/or social diversity within their manuscripts to submit. Having said this, we DO NOT support sexual violence, violence against children, bigotry and racism, pedophilia and/or animal cruelty. While it is true that violence and cruelty features within some genres, horror for example, or racism in a historical fiction set in the time of slavery, we will not accept manuscripts that support or promote, directly or indirectly, racism, misogyny, rape, sexual, physical or emotional violence.

Who reads the slush?

These wonderful Teams! (Including me! @SC_Author, @LH_Writes and I are Team #OneBasket)

This year there are nine Teams made up of one Mentor & two Slushies. The Teams are listed here: https://nestpitch.wordpress.com/2015/03/12/nestpitch-2015-teams-simply-smawesome/

Entry Guidelines:

The Pitch window will be open for 48 hours, thereby allowing everyone, regardless of where you live in the world, to prepare and submit a pitch.

The Pitch will be made up of three parts.

(i)                 a 35-word pitch

(ii)               answer to a question (in your main characters voice)*

(iii)             the first 300-words of their manuscript

*QUESTION: If your MC was an Easter Egg, what flavour would s/he be?  Keep your answer to NO MORE than 15-words.

How to submit your Pitch:

On April 1^st the submission window will open. Please follow the guidelines. Last year some people put their first 300 words at the top or mixed up the order. Please do not do this. There is a reason for the order and failure to follow the below will likely mean your submission will not pass Round#1 (refer below).

Send the following in your email:

In the Subject line: Nestpitch2015 Sub and your name/author name

In the body of the email type these words: 

By submitting this pitch + first 300 words I agree to allow the Nestpitch blog and/or any other affiliated blogs to post my submission on an open forum for the purposes of critique and feedback.  I understand this can be for the life of the blog(s). 

Manuscript Title:

Category/ Genre:

Word Count:

35-word Pitch:

QU (in your MC’s voice), if your MC was an Easter Egg, what flavor would s/he be?:

*First 300-words of your MS:

*1^st 300 = if your MS has a prologue, then your 1^st 300 starts from your prologue. Also, finish at the end of a sentence. This is 300-word MAX, so your last word is 300-words. If your sentence finishes on 292-words, submit that. If your sentences run into 30 or more words, then you might want to rethink the length of your sentence(s). Broken sentences do no one favours.

Example of a Submission:

Subject line: Nestpitch2015 Sub – Nikola Vukoja

By submitting this pitch + first 300 words I agree to allow the Nestpitch blog and/or any other affiliated blogs to post my submission on an open forum for the purposes of critique and feedback.  I understand this can be for the life of the blog(s). 

Manuscript Title:      Easter Bunny goes to Vegas

Category/ Genre:      MG/ Fantasy

Word Count:             26,000

35-word Pitch:                      

After loosing all his eggs in a card game to March Hare, the Easter Bunny heads for Las Vegas where he plans to win enough money to buy back the world’s Easter eggs.

If your MC was an Easter Egg, what flavour would s/he be?

I’d be every flavour, colour, shape and size imaginable; I’m the Easter Bunny… geez!

First 300-words of your MS:

Easter Bunny Blah Blah…

Send your submission to: Nestpitch@outlook.com (please note the submission window below, submissions sent prior or post those times/dates will not be accepted)

Formatting:

Either Times Roman or Arial (we are aware that there may be issues with some email accounts regarding font, please do your best to use either Times Roman or Arial, or something as close as possible to these two)

Please don't indent. Single Space. One space between each Paragraph.

Selection Process:

Last year we contacted all submissions that had made a mistake or left something out (listing only category or genre for example). This year we aren't able to do that. All submissions will be read by Nikola first to ensure each submission has followed the above rules/guidelines. 

NOTE: WE understand formatting can get wonky in emails. That is not a disqualifier.

There will be three rounds before final selection.

a.       Round #1: Follow guidelines. That's it!

b.      Round #2: Each Team will select an initial 5-8 submissions and then request more pages/material. Based on the additional pages/material, each Team will drill their selection down to between 4-5 to go to the next round. Note: authors may receive more than one request from more than one Team.

c.       Round #3: Teams will critique the first 2,500-words of each ms that made the  final round. That's also our chance to get to know the authors! 

      This round is a 3-step process. Being selected does not necessarily mean being featured. Teams will want to know the author(s) are willing to accept feedback etc.  The Teams will work with their authors for 3 weeks, offering feedback, sharpening pitches, & suggesting improvements. After this, the authors have a full week to make any final changes before the agent round.

From the Slush-pile Picks.

Nikola's Team #Team2Beat, will be hunting through the slush-pile and the reserves, looking for gems that have been missed. We will have the option of selecting between 1-5 pitches (at our discretion) to feature. This is basically a bonus-pick so, you may just get an email after the date, but if you do, you’ll be expected to work twice as hard as the other authors as you’ll have less time – so be ready!

Additional Rules:

a.       Only manuscripts which HAVE NOT been featured in another online competition are eligible to enter. This DOES NOT include workshops, critique groups or similar. It also DOES NOT include Twitter or any other tag-line style pitches either. Please feel free to ask if you aren't sure.

                                                              i.      If you have submitted the same manuscript to #Pitchslam, due to the time-line cross-over, we are accepting these submissions. However, if your submission goes to the final stage of either or both competitions, please advice us and the host of #Pitchslam.

b.      Submissions MUST follow the submission format. We accept that sometimes emails de-format fonts and tabs, what we don’t want is people forgetting to put CATEGORY & GENRE (for example) or not answering the question; that sort of thing.

All pitches that have followed the rules (round#1) will then be forwarded to each Team. After the internal cat-fight, erh discussions will take place and each Team will select their top 4-5 author submissions (round#3). Expect to also see teasers and cryptic clues via Twitter & Facebook (*don’t forget to follow the Mentors and Slushies, lots of fun to be had!)

Nikola's Team #Team2Beat will be the Bandit Team. I bet all of you have a brother or sister who always stole your favorite Easter Eggs – well that’s what they’ll be doing – sort of. They will look for hidden or missed gems. #Team2Beat may have as few as one submission featured or as many as five – it all depends on how many diamonds in the rough they believe were missed.

This year there will again be an Amazon Gift Voucher Prize for the submission with the highest number of requests and another for Matching the Agents with their Masks (more on that at agent reveal).

Dates:

Agent Reveal: March 27th

Submission Window Opens April Fools Day (April 1^st 2015)

10pm Aust. Eastern Standard Time

7am USA New York Time

12 noon London UK Time

Submission Window Closes Good Friday (April 3^rd 2015)

10pm Aust. Eastern Standard Time

7am USA New York Time

12 noon London UK Time

Secret Agent Bunny Mask Reveal: April 9th

Teams send out requests for 1^st 2,500 words Sunday 12^th April

Authors reply by Tuesday 14^th April

Final Selection Sunday10^rd May (Mother’s Day)

Agent request open Monday 11^th May to Tuesday 12^th May 2015

Unmask the Agent: Wednesday 13^th May 2015 (Amazon Voucher)

Agent request(s) sent out to authors Wednesday 13^th May 2015

Authors to send requested pages to Agents by Friday 15^th May 2015

Winner of Most Requests: May 20^th or 21^st

Stats: May 28^th or 29^th

Nestpitch2015 Close: May 31^st (follow up blog with success stories as they come)

A Different Perspective

My family loves Pete the Cat. Especially when he's wearing his cool, blue, magic sunglasses.

He's groovy, he's mellow, and best of all, he reminds us to LOOK AT THING IN A WHOLE NEW WAY.

It had been a while since I'd read this particular book to my daughter, (PETE THE CAT AND HIS MAGIC SUNGLASSES, by Kimberly and James Dean) but a few days ago, she pulled it out of the bookcase and handed it to me.

Boom. Couldn't have had better timing.

We read the book three times in a row because, three years old.

In short, the book is about what happens when Pete has a really bad day. His friend gives him a pair of cool magic sunglasses and - Presto! Suddenly Pete's bad day gets pretty fabulous. He sees the sun shining, hears the birds singing, and realizes life is still good. Are the sunglasses really magic? Or is it just that they help Pete look at the world differently?

As I read, I remembered my friend Cheri, who once told me that if I got stuck on a problem, all I had to do was brush my teeth while standing on the bathtub ledge.

Because, SEE THINGS IN A WHOLE NEW WAY.

Blue sunglasses, toothbrushing from on high, walk on the other side of the street, whatever it takes.

The reason this is so light-bulby to me this week is that I've been stuck. And sometimes, in spite of the obviousness of the solution, I forget to change perspective when this happens. Trying to move with agility and insight through plot points? Plodding character or scene arcs? Sometimes I feel like I'm boxing in a tub of molasses and the harder I punch, the stucker I get.

Often, all it takes is some time away from the work, or even just a good walk or run. I think really well when I am moving.

But when that's not enough, SEE THINGS IN A WHOLE NEW WAY. Maybe it's brushing my teeth on the bathtub ledge. Or with a cat on my head.

But it could also be taking a walk or a run when I am NOT plugged into my music and lost in my own head. Paying attention to the world around me to see who's doing what and why. Taking an hour at Starbucks without burying my head in a book or my phone. Watching faces and interactions. Listening - I mean, really listening - to the conversations around me.

Ok, yeah, invasive, but aren't all authors?

The point is, getting unstuck means getting out of your own head and out of your normal perspective.

How do you get out of ruts?

Contest Season

There's Hollywood's awards season ...

And there's the music industry's awards season....

And then there's MY favorite season ... the one I get to be part of ... the online writing contest season. (Which, to be truthful, lasts for many months)

Image credit: Cat York

I just entered the first big one of the year: Sun vs. Snow - held by Amy Trueblood and Michelle Hauck.

Here's the deal (for those of you new to contests): Michelle and Amy accepted only the first 200 entries  (query and first 250) -- which all happened in a mind-blowing 6 minutes. Now they are reading the slush and picking their top choices. Next week their picks will go through a mentoring process. THEN -- the agent round!!

I also put my hat into another not-quite-contest but definitely an opportunity called Agent Match. (#AgentMatch). This one, offered by Samantha Fountain, is a chance for a long (!) list of fabulous agents to see your hook and query. If they're intrigued, they may ask for pages ... and who knows, maybe this will be the moment I meet my perfect agent match.

It's kind of nerve wracking but it's also lots of fun.

Fun partly because it's thrilling to get ready for the contest -- knowing I wanted to enter imposed a deadline and forced me to polish when I might otherwise have lollygagged.

But also partly because it pulls me out of my self-imposed social media silence (part of my discipline while I write) and plunges me back into the Twitterverse to talk to other writers. I get to be part of the community again -- which is a supportive, energizing experience.

The path to publication and being agented is daunting and can be very lonely. This online community makes it bearable. We encourage each other, we remind each other that we did a great thing: we WROTE A BOOK. And now we're PUTTING IT OUT THERE. 

I am nervous about this book -- I love it, but as always, I've got ALL the insecurities about whether I'll ever be a good writer. Being part of this contest helps me remember I'm not the only one with those worries.

Thanks again, Michelle, Amy, and Samantha for this terrific opportunity!

Anyone else sweating it out with me until Feb 2?

Being Reductive

I've been thinking a lot about being reductive.

When someone boils down a complicated, nuanced concept into an oversimplified phrase, he or she is accused of being reductive. We rebuke the person who dares to rob issues of their complexity, rendering dialogue inauthentic or incomplete.

In fiction, reductive character development is the kiss of death. Who wants to read about a simple person? We want all the inner conflict and confusion we see in ourselves. We want to read about the person we love to hate alongside the person we're cheering for.

However I think being selectively reductive can play an important role in our writing, especially in middle grade and young adult writing, and I want to argue that case.

Let me be clear: I do not for one minute underestimate my readers. They are mature, sophisticated thinkers - much more so than I was at that age.

But some of the concepts we're writing about are things they're just discovering their own opinions about -- and I fear that sometimes in our zeal to be complete, we can try too hard.  There's nothing wrong with using universal terms that are easier to understand.

In television news, we tell very short stories. Usually about 1 1/2 to 2 minutes. This includes sound bites from interview subjects.  We hone our writing craft toward the pithy, the simplistic, the reductive -- in order to keep it short.

Sometimes it's easy -- Snowmageddon coming! Prepare! Evacuate!
Weather is simple. We predict, we react. (WE ARE HYPER-DRAMATIC) Sometimes we get surprised.

People are not simple. They do beautiful and terrible things for nuanced reasons.

 Terrorists kill French satirists.

North Koreans terrorize the entertainment industry.

We connect with each other on a very simple, reductive level by slapping labels and hashtags on the news of the day.



I think there's value in this - in spite of the fact that the nuance gets flattened.

In books, we get to explore nuance. We get to have unreliable narrators and vulnerable villains, we can explore a troubled sibling relationship and allow for change. Or not.

Characters lie, change their minds, are achingly sincere, and stunningly oblivious -- and by the end of the book, we understand why, even if we don't like their reasons or agree.

Sometimes the best way to keep the author from getting in the way of his or her own narrative is to be simple -- even reductive -- in order to let the characters work things out for themselves.

What do you think?

Holiday Query Blog Hop -- SPOOKY JANE

Another blog hop critiquing opportunity!! Once again, Michelle Hauck is sponsoring this terrific opportunity to give and get invaluable feedback.

Want to know how it works? Look here:

Here's my REVISED query -- looking forward to making it bright and shiny when I see all your feedback. 

Dear Brilliant Agent,

Twelve-year-old Ivy Jane is thrilled when her family stops moving around and settles in the Minnesota town where her close-knit clan of cousins lives. It’s nice to finally be around people who are like her – they’re a family with the unusual gift of being able to keep anything alive. But even more important is the chance to be in on the inside jokes instead of always the lonely outsider.

But immediately, things get spooky. People standing too close to Ivy suddenly feel sick and have bone-chilling hallucinations. She has walking blackouts where she takes on a different personality – but remembers nothing afterward. She hears voices in her head and because she acts so strange, they’re the only ones talking to her.    

Then the voices actually introduce themselves, which is when she learns she’s not crazy, just the unlucky gateway for some troubled family ghosts. They are the ones in control during Ivy’s blackouts, and through her, they’re growing stronger. But they’re also killing her. The only way to save herself will be to untangle her family’s power over life from its apparent connection to the spirit of death.  But to do that, she’ll need the help of her cousins, who are leery of being around her. Besides, they don’t believe in ghosts.

SPOOKY JANE is an in-progress Upper MG Paranormal. It echoes elements of television’s SLEEPY HOLLOW – written for a younger crowd – and the themes of haunting and family in Mary Downing Hahn’s ALL THE LOVELY BAD ONES. 

Thank you for your time and consideration.

First Page Critique Blog Hop -- SPOOKY JANE

Michelle Hauck is hosting a fun blog hop -- a chance for some feedback on your ever-critical first page. Here's more about it.

Here's mine -- looking forward to your thoughts!!


REVISED:


Upper MG Paranormal 



The day after her grandmother died, twelve-year old Ivy Jane sat alone in the back yard breathing in the unexpected lilacs. They never bloomed in late August.

She shifted slightly on the thick carpet of grass, the muscles in her legs humming slightly from the faint pulse of energy beneath her. Leftover tears thrummed against her throat.

“Dude, you trying to get a suntan or something?”

Ivy opened her eyes and then rolled them theatrically at her once-favorite cousin, now casting his Q-tip shaped shadow over them both.

“Ha ha. Yeah. Cause I need one so bad. And since when did you start calling people ‘dude’?”

“Since I hardly ever see you, I guess there’s lots you don’t know about me anymore.”

“What do you mean, ‘hardly ever see you.’ Wasn’t I with you yesterday?”

“You know what I mean.”

She knew. And Hunter was right. He – and all the rest of her cousins – had changed a lot in the years since she’d last visited, thought Ivy sadly. “I didn’t hear you arrive. Did you walk?”

“Yeah. Sort of. Mom dropped me off at the end of the driveway. She had an errand to run for the open house tomorrow. She said she’d be back to pick up Aunt Eliza so they can go to the funeral home to arrange the service.”

Ivy blanched and kept her eyes on the grass, her right hand absently fingering imaginary piano keys on her thigh.

First Conference - No Longer a Newbie

So, conferences!!

I finally attended my first SCBWI.

I awoke at an hour I thought I'd escaped when my youngest started sleeping through the night .... and drove to Scottsdale.

It was everything I'd hoped for. Nice people, smart and funny faculty, and I learned things -- lots of great things.

For example, here's something interesting: when you're querying, even if you've never been published, you should be clear that you're querying your 2nd (or 3rd or 4th or whatever) novel. According to John Cusick of Greenhouse Literary, this way an agent can see that you're working on your craft  -- especially if you're querying the same agents. And querying the same agents, he says -- even if they've declined your projects in the past -- is a good thing to do, because it shows you're actually interested in working with those agents.

Yay! Because I was under the impression that since I've never been published, I had to query each novel as my "first" -- even though I'm actually about to start querying my 3rd.

And I was delighted to hear that querying the same agents is ok too. I researched carefully but did not query my entire list with my first novel. I'm a fan of querying in small batches so I can see whether what I'm throwing against the wall will stick. Obviously my first novel needed work, which is why it garnered NO interest and why it is now in the TO BE REVISED pile.

 I was sad when I thought I'd no longer be able to try again with the agents I'd already queried, even though I think my second novel is better, and am hoping my third will be even closer to good.

Another glad tiding: it's ok to get dark with #MG. I've torn apart my current ms because I was afraid I had written too scary. In spite of the likes of Garth Nix and Neil Gaiman, I wondered whether a new author could really get away with don't-turn-out-the-lights stuff.

According to both Jaida Temperly of New Leaf Literary and Alison Weiss of Egmont USA, it's ok. Those of us writing scary and dark -- for Upper MG at least -- are ok. As long as it's good writing, of course.

Again, yay!!

Anyone else out there writing scary right now?