kerbieaddis - Tumblr blog

[kerbieaddis]

Pitch Wars Advice

So you’re thinking of entering Pitch Wars. Good for you!

First of all, if you’re at this stage, it means you most likely already have a completed novel, which is an accomplishment on its own. Seriously. Many, many people say they’ve “always wanted” to write a novel, and most never do. You’re already ahead of the game!

Pitch Wars is an awesome competition and can introduce you to a whole new writing community, all while whipping your manuscript into shape. Seriously, I adore Pitch Wars.

Secondly, I completely understand what it’s like to be in your shoes right now.

I was a two time mentee. Once in 2013, and then again in 2015. We’ll talk about 2014 here in a bit… but I’ve also been a mentor in Pitch Wars, from 2016 to 2019. I’ve seen what it’s like from multiple sides, so I’d like to give you some advice for the journey ahead.

1. You don’t need Pitch Wars

This sounds contrary to what I said earlier, but it’s true. Yes, it can be a great help and introduce you to people, but it’s just a tool. It’s not a magical golden key to publishing.

I was in twice, as I said above, and while I dearly loved both those manuscripts and my mentors were great, neither snagged the attention of an agent. I got my agent with a manuscript written outside the contest, using critique partners to guide my editing process.

By far, it is not the end-all, be-all for getting an agent. Plenty of people find their agents through the slush, and plenty of people get lots of agent love in Pitch Wars that doesn’t result in any offers.

You can get by just fine if you don’t make it in. Which brings me to my next point:

2. You are still talented even if you don’t make it in

I know people keep repeating this wisdom on Twitter and it’s probably been mentioned multiple times on the advice blog hop, but that’s because it’s 1000% true.

There are a million reasons why your manuscript might not be chosen that have nothing to do with your talent. Maybe the mentors you submitted to just didn’t jive with your concept. Maybe your query didn’t do the story justice. Maybe someone loved your manuscript, but they found another that needed work that they felt especially qualified to handle.

The reasons above absolutely happen in the Pitch Wars slush. I know, because I’ve passed on books for those reasons. A book could be amazing, but maybe I just like the concept in another better. Maybe one book needs POV restructuring, so I pass on another project to help with the one that aligns with my strengths. Has nothing to do with the talent of either writer.

Also, I mentioned 2014 above. I applied to be in Pitch Wars in 2013, 2014, and 2015, all with different manuscripts. I didn’t get chosen in 2014. Does that mean I was suddenly untalented for one year? No, it means I wrote something that didn’t click with the mentors I chose.

3. Learn to wait

A lesson Pitch Wars taught me that I didn’t realize at the time was a great appreciation for patience.

You wait to enter. You wait to get requests. You wait for the mentee announcements. If you get in, you wait to get your mentor’s notes. You wait to see if they approve the edits. You wait for the showcase. You wait to see if you get any love from agents.

It’s a LOT of waiting.

This is great preparation for how things work in the publishing industry. You send off queries and you wait. You get a request, send it off, and wait. Even once you have an agent, it’s a lot of waiting, especially when you’re on submission.

Believe me. I’m on submission now and it’s so, so much waiting.

Some people are fine with waiting and they can shut off the writing part of their brain and go about their lives. Some people, like me, feel like they must always have an active writing project, so they move on to the next thing to have a fresh manuscript ready as soon as possible.

Don’t wait and obsess. That’s where people spiral, and we don’t want that.

Learn to wait, and enjoy the wait. Figure out if you do best with shutting off that part of your brain, finding another hobby, or moving on to the next project.

4. Talk to people

I know, easier said that done. I’m quite shy online, even though I’m an obnoxious loudmouth in real life. But really, talking will help you find your people.

Start by venturing onto the hashtag. Reply when people ask questions, rejoice when someone has a success, be supportive when someone is feeling down.

I made all of my writing friends online initially. Many of them became my closest friends, and I was a bridesmaid for one! Seriously, you never know what kinds of great relationships will blossom when you start reaching out.

There are always writers looking for critique partners, and you can easily find someone willing to swap. Be careful and start with a few pages or a chapter to get a feel for one another’s critique style, and don’t be afraid to back out if you feel like you won’t work well with someone.

And that brings me to my final point…

5. No one has the final say except you

Sometimes you’ll get advice that just doesn’t click. And that’s okay. You’re allowed to say no. You’re allowed to disagree—even with your mentor. This is especially true for those of you writing about marginalized experiences.

One of my manuscripts from years ago included an #ownvoices main character with Asperger’s. My mentors were fantastic about listening when I explained what aspects were from my own experiences and how to incorporate those in a way that would be understood by readers who didn’t share that same marginalization.

They were great, but some other people weren’t. I had feedback that belittled the main character’s responses to stimuli or argued that a mental illness like mine was too hard to understand.

Trust your gut. Know that your experiences are valid, even if someone else can’t understand them on the page. It’s your book, and you have the final say. A good mentor will help you take those experiences and make them more easily understandable, but they won’t change those experiences.

---

I could write so much more about my experiences with Pitch Wars, but I think those are my main five points. It’s worth submitting, but remember that you’re already doing an amazing job.

Every step you take brings you closer and closer to being a published author, and even if you are passed over in a contest, get a rejection from an agent, or you’re feeling lost while waiting, you’re still inching closer to that dream.

Celebrate the journey, not just the end result. Putting yourself out there for a contest like this takes a lot of courage, so take pride in that. Re-read your manuscript and enjoy your own words. You did it, you wrote a book!

Just keep moving forward!

If any of you reading this want to chat a little about entering Pitch Wars or you just want to flail and have a sympathetic ear, hit me up on Twitter: @kerbieaddis. I won’t be critiquing any pages or queries, but I’m totally open to listening and helping where I can.

[kerbieaddis]

Revision Exhaustion

I don't have much of a blog post this week, because I'm exhausted from a long weekend of finishing up revisions. I made up my mind that I would finish, no matter what, while my husband was out of town. That turned into a 50 hour writing marathon without sleep.

But big picture edits are finally done!

I'm going to take it easy for the rest of today, then dive into line edits to make sure everything is cohesive before sending it off to my critique partners. After that, I send it to my agent.

I am . . . incredibly nervous about this new draft. There are multiple things that I worry may be TOO far, but they're fitting for the book. We'll see!

[kerbieaddis]

KonMari Your Writing

If you read my previous post, you're probably aware I am deep into revising my science fiction manuscript. I'm changing a lot, mostly in the second and third acts, and there's quite a lot of "killing your darlings" happening.

As you also may be aware, there's a new Netflix show called Tidying Up With Marie Kondo that is excellent for procrastinating. Er, I mean, it's excellent for research!

Marie Kondo has written bestselling books about tidying, organizing, and culling possessions. You've probably seen memes of "Does this spark joy?" If you haven't read any of Marie Kondo's books, you're doing yourself a massive disservice. Read them! They're amazing.

And they're not just amazing for tidying. I've found her philosophies immensely helpful when revising.

If you’ve never heard of the KonMari method or seen various memes spoofing it, one of the basic concepts is it hold an item and ask yourself “Does this spark joy?” If it doesn’t, get rid of the item. It surprisingly works for getting rid of unnecessary clutter. I’ve cut my wardrobe down by 1/3 using this method. It’s amazing how many things we hold on to because we feel like we’re supposed to, or because we assume we like something, but when we ask ourselves directly, we discover we don’t.

How does this relate to writing? Easily!

When revising, I noticed myself lingering over certain words or passages. They weren’t quite right, but I also thought of them as necessary for the characters to get from Point A to Point B. Still, I noticed I’d slow down when reading these sections.

Eventually, I hesitated over one and thought “Does this passage make me happy? Proud?”

The answer was no. I’d kept it out of some unnecessary mental obligation, but there was something off about it. My intuition was that it wasn’t good enough, but I hadn’t let myself face that thought.

I cut the passage and put it in my deleted scenes folder (PS, have one of these, just in case). Removing it forced me to rethink exactly how things progressed from Point A to Point B, and let me refocus on a different solution that gave the characters more agency.

Something else Marie Kondo goes over in her books is the idea of keeping something to please other people. This is why she insists that people declutter alone, without anyone else looming over their shoulder. To translate this to writing, don’t keep a passage or a character out of obligation. Maybe you included an inside joke between critique partners, but it doesn’t really serve the scene. Maybe you have a character named after a cousin.

You don’t have to keep anything in your story that weakens the final product.

Of course, this technique doesn't work with those darlings that need to be killed. Sometimes you love passages that just don't work for the overall story. But sometimes there are passages where your intuition nags at you. You'll notice these passages as you read, passages where you think "I should've taken more time with this" or "Well, if I take this out, everything else falls apart."

If the passage doesn't make you proud, don't keep it. Cut it, save it somewhere else, and try to think of another solution. It may take several passes to be completely happy with the book, but it's so worth it to have a draft you can be proud of.

So that's my little tip for revising. KonMari your words. It works!

[kerbieaddis]

How I Got My Agent

Well, here's a post I never thought I'd have the chance to write.

After 6 years of writing seriously, several manuscripts, multiple contests, hundreds of queries, and a metric ton of determination, I am over the moon to announce I have an agent.

I can't even begin to tell you guys how happy I am. I have a long road ahead of me still, with revisions and going on submission, but having someone in my corner is such an incredible boost to help me fight through self-doubt.

My writing journey has been long and (literally) bloody, but for this post I'll just focus on the book that got me an agent. Before I wrote this book, I'd made up my mind to only write something if I really loved it. I was finishing up my master's degree, making plans to move to Philadelphia, and really didn't have time to write something new.

One night, after calming me down from an anxiety attack, my husband, Chris, said: "Don't you wish there was a machine that could erase all the bad memories?"

I thought on this for a moment. Part of me welcomed the idea of erasing bad memories, but as someone with a family history of Alzheimer's disease, it simultaneously terrified me. For that to work, I thought, it would need to be an artificial intelligence. Something that could sort the memories. I thought of my miscarriage from years earlier and how even though it was a terrible memory and had brought on several new anxiety triggers, it had lit a fire under me. Would I want to erase that? How would an artificial intelligence understand that I valued the bad memories?

I told Chris my thoughts. "But what if an artificial intelligence couldn't tell the difference between bad or good memories?"

"Sounds like a good science fiction idea."

But I can't write science fiction, I thought. I'm not smart enough. I don't know anything about science, how could I write science fiction? So I tucked the idea away as something that someone else could write. But not me.

And I didn't write anything on that book for a year and a half. But one day, when washing dishes, I heard in my head the voice of the villain. He only said one line, which is a spoiler, but it made the rest of the book suddenly click into place. I stopped washing dishes and scrambled for my computer, typing frantically with soapy hands.

Within an hour, I had my outline.

What I didn't understand about the science behind my plot points, I researched. I live near an academic library and spent many exhausted nights over quantum computing textbooks and articles about the ethics of artificial intelligences.

In one month, I had a first draft.

In three months, I had a final draft and a thumbs up from all my critique partners.

I started querying, knowing I had lots of rejection ahead of me. Previously, I had queried manuscripts for about a year before giving up, so I expected the timeline to be similar.

I had difficult classes, which was a welcome distraction from thinking about my queries floating in cyberspace. To finish a 25-page paper, I stayed up for two nights and finally turned it in, signaling my completion of that semester. Before passing out in bed, I checked my query email. I wasn't expecting anything, really, since I'd only been querying for a month and just a few people had responded so far.

I had one email. An agent wanted to talk on the phone.

I became lightheaded. I staggered down the hall and mumbled something to Chris about "someone wants to talk" which he found hilariously ominous. I was so sleep-deprived I could barely comprehend what was happening, so I asked my husband to read the email.

"They want a phone call," he confirmed.

It was Friday, which meant the phone call was scheduled for Monday. This agent's timing couldn't have been more perfect. I think if I would've gotten their email while still writing papers, I might have failed that semester because there was no way I could concentrate on anything else.

Monday came, finally, and we had our phone call. I vibrated with anxiety the entire time. Chris had "phone call duties" which involved herding our pets, keeping them quiet, and sitting by with a notebook to write down all the key points of the call since I knew I would be utterly useless to remember anything once the adrenaline faded.

It was an offer! The agent loved my book. They had ideas for revision, which I agreed with. They were kind and supportive and had great ideas. I got off the phone with my heart soaring. They were perfect.

But then I had the task of notifying all other agents. I only had out around 20 queries, so luckily that didn't take long.

More full requests came in. Each time, I nearly threw up with stress. One agent asked for the full, an agent I'd admired for a long time, but I didn't get my hopes up. I queried them because they liked my previous manuscripts, but I always assumed dark/horror wasn't their cup of tea.

A week later, when eating salad at a restaurant with my husband, I got an email from that very agent. They wanted a phone call.

I tossed my fork and grabbed a spoon, shoveling salad into my mouth. "They want a phone call in two hours," I explained to Chris, and he too, began scarfing down food.

We raced home and I panic-prepared for the phone call. Chris resumed his "phone call duties." Can I just say thank God for supportive spouses?

The phone call happened. Another offer! The agent was absolutely incredible. They talked about the themes in the book, themes I thought most people wouldn't catch. They wanted heavier revisions than the other offering agent, but as they explained what worked and what didn't work, I made a suggestion, and they added to that suggestion. I was suddenly overcome with an itch to work on the story again, because their enthusiasm and ideas sparked my creativity.

I told the agent I was surprised they liked the book so much, since I'd always assumed they disliked horror. "Pure horror, yes," they explained, "but not books with horror elements. Plus your book reminds me of Annihilation."

I swooned. Annihilation is one of my favorite books, and I had been trying to recapture the ominous unknown fear of that book in my own.

I got off the phone, shaking. Now I had a decision to make. I loved both agents, but I could only choose one.

I made a pros and cons list. I asked my friends their opinions on each agent and their agency. I did hours of googling. Each time a new email popped up, I was actually praying it wasn't another offer. I didn't want the decision to be any harder. My deadline was soon after Christmas, so several agents did email to ask for more time. More than one said they were leaning towards offering, but that they never offer without finishing a manuscript.

After lots of stressful crying, throwing up, and cramming chocolate in my face, I had my decision.

I officially signed with Bridget Smith of Dunham Literary. She was the agent I believed I had zero chance with, but in the end, she was the one who understood my book the most. Her revision ideas were so incredibly brilliant and they made me crave writing again, which is exactly what I want in an agent.

Anyway, I know when I read these stories, I loved to see statistics, so here's the querying stats on my sci fi:

Queries Sent: 20

Rejections: 8

No Response: 4

Full Requests: 8

Offers: 2

I think if there's anything I want other writers to take from this, it's don't give up and don't self-reject. I rolled my eyes when reading that on other "How I Got My Agent" stories, but it's true. I self-rejected a LOT. I even put off writing this book, which is probably the best thing I've ever written, because I assumed I wasn't "smart enough" to write it. You can do anything if you put the work in.

Maybe it won't be this manuscript, and that's okay. Maybe your writing isn't ready. Maybe the market isn't ready. But keep going, because with each manuscript you finish, it's another step on the journey.

Speaking of, I still have another journey ahead of me, and that's revision, so I should get back to it. If you got this far, thanks for reading, and good luck!

[kerbieaddis]

Oh Hey

Obligatory introductory text. 

I had a tumblr before but I needed an ~official~ Tumblr I suppose. So I’ll be here for now. Speakin my words. Doin my thang.