Pitching is Not My Thing

I have discovered something new about myself this week- pitching is not my thing. Not only can I not throw a baseball, but I can't write a pitch. Unfortunately this is the week for pitches.

I finished my fifth/sixth rewrite for my novel Flame and have some super wonderful test readers reading away which means I am breaking from my novel for awhile. What to do with all my time? Write my pitch of course! This is the blurb I'll put in my letter to agents that will make them feel like their lives will be empty if they don't read my story.

I imagine a pitch to be something where I'm walking down the street and I suddenly see my dream agents walking towards me. I chase them down and I have only seconds to convince these people they want to read my story. I tell them the coolest most exciting few sentences and then they are off walking away again. Those few words have to be words that impact. They have to be words they can't shake from their minds. They have to be words that haunt them so much that they have to track me down so they can hear more. That is a pitch, and that is what a good pitch will do.

All I have is one or two short paragraphs to convince them to look at my story, and guess what? It is hard to do. I think I became a novel writer because I'm long winded and it takes me four hundred pages to say what I want to say. Trying to cram four hundred pages into two paragraphs is agonizing. I just can't seem to get it right. How many pitches have I written for Flame so far? Three on my computer and several in my notebook, and none of them are looking pretty right now.

This week is also the final week for the nanowrimo Pitchapalooza. It is a contest of sorts where you can e-mail your pitch for your nanowrimo novel and be randomly chosen to have it critiqued. Twenty-five people will be selected for this. Of those twenty-five people, one winner will be chosen and he or she will get set up with an actaul agent or publisher! This is pretty much the coolest prize ever! There is also a fan favorite winner and this person will get a free one hour consultation with the book doctors.

I decided to enter the contest which means writing another pitch for my nano novel Albi Wellins and the Serpent's Key. I have written and rewritten and rewritten. I finally have one I'm happy with and I'm super excited and nervous to send it in. Anyhow, I thought it would be fun to share, so here it is below:

Eleven-year-old Albi Wellins is a criminal. He hunts food from the lord’s land in order to feed his poor peasant family, and for this he could be put to death. They are managing alright, or so Albi thinks, until he returns one morning to find that he and his twin sister Maura have been sold by their mother for money.

Albi is taken from the only home he has ever known to serve the lord of Harewood Castle. The new servants endure severe flogging and ridicule by the overseer and the lord until they prove through a series of tests that they are loyal to him. When proving his loyalty means betraying those he loves and compromising who he is, Albi realizes he must escape.

Harewood Castle is known throughout the land for its defense. No one can get in and no one can get out. The castle is hundreds of years old and there is only rumor of one man to ever escape. The legend says he discovered the mysterious serpent’s key and fled the city. When Albi and his new friends hear the story they seek out the key that few believe exists.

Welcome Parents

Welcome to all the Parents and Guardians of readers! Thank you for allowing your child help test read my novel. I appreciate it so much and I hope the students have fun reading it too. This page is set up for parents who have questions or concerns. Feel free to leave a comment in the comment section and I will try to reply in a timely manner. I also have a Facebook page set up, so I will try to update this with the link ASAP. Thanks again! Carrie Austin


Update- Here is the link to my Facebook page. Feel free to leave any questions and/or concerns there. Thanks!    https://www.facebook.com/writer.ceaustin

A Writer's Valentine's Day

I’m pretty sure this was the first Valentine’s Day where I spent a good chunk of it alone. My hubby’s work schedule meant seeing him for less than two hours and the girls were at school. I was alone and left to fend for myself.  Don’t feel sorry for me though, I went to Starbucks (coffee fixes everything) and ordered myself the biggest size (if coffee fixes everything, then bigger is better).

I sipped my coffee and then got to work lovin’ on my characters. Believe me, some of them needed a lot, I mean a real whole lot of lovin’. My female characters? Great. My male characters? They haven’t been looking so hot. In fact, one of them even changes looks mid story (if you aren’t a writer, let’s just say that’s not a good thing). His name is Levi. In the beginning of the book his hair was brown and his eyes were hazel. Then lo and behold, by the end of the story his eyes were gray and his hair was blonde. Maybe it would be okay if he had magical powers. He doesn’t. I might be able to get away with it if he was a fugitive in hiding. He’s not. He is your simple good guy with no excuse to change his hair and eye color (shame on him). I spent a decent amount of time combing through my story and changing his hair and eyes to the right colors (gray eyes and blonde hair).

I always thought I wouldn’t make the small mistakes like forgetting a character’s eye color, but once the pages start to pile it’s easy to forget a million little things. Unfortunately some of my characters got the brunt of it. I fleshed out Levi first because he was the easy one. After getting his looks back to order I worked out exactly what type of clothes he wore and tweaked his personality. He’s from a noble family, and the biggest gentleman you’ll ever meet. The problem is he can go overboard with being too proper and that is when he starts to get funny (but not on purpose of course)!

My second male character is Oren. He plays a small part in the first book. He’s stoic and mysterious, so I didn’t need a lot of information about him. The problem is that I’m into a decent chunk of book two and I don’t know him. If I was a diligent writer, I would have been well acquainted with him by now. It turns out I did need a lot of information because he is a big guy in book two and he is an absolute mess. He is even more confusing than Levi’s changing appearances (if you aren’t a writer, let’s just say that’s really, really bad).  Luckily, Oren got the ultimate manly Valentine makeover. Hair? Check. Clothes? Check. Cool weapons? Check. Super awesome faithful steed? Check. Hunky personality? Check. (Don’t worry, my husband okayed my use of hunky here.)

My story always needs shaping up, so once the men were taken care of I went to work changing, fixing, smoothing, clipping, and recreating. Editing is tough stuff. I left the coffee shop half brain dead with a bad case of the jitters (apparently bigger isn’t always better), but now my characters “heart” me more, and I “heart” my story more.

Hope you got to do something you love today. Happy Valentine’s Day!