First Pitch Worries

Hey People!

Hope you had a great July 4th weekend! Mine consisted of being at the hospital because my best friend had a baby girl! Meet little Arianna Rose.

Now, enough baby awws. Time to get down to business…and defeat the Huns! Sorry, I always break into singing Mulan when I say lets get down to buisness…and defeat-

Moving on.

It has been a while since I have gone to a writer’s conference. So I googled last night and found one not far from where I live! So I was ecstatic (No flight or board fees. Yay!). Then I was even happier to see all the great seminars that I found interesting. Finally, the cherry on top was the amazing list of agents and editors that will be attending.

They have ‘pitching block’s’ which have about 20 agents in each block and you get 4 min to pitch your manuscript to them face to face. All the conferences I have gone to have this type of a thing and is one of the best aspects of conferences.

To be honest, I have never pitched my idea. I’ve gone to lots of conferences but always have been too scared to face the agents, I was much more comfortable with e-mailing!

I’m not going to let this opportunity elude me though! I bit the bullet and I signed up for a pitching block as well as a round table with two agents that will critique my query. It will be amazing, I’m absolutely sure!

So that’s the good news. The bad news is…the conference starts in 7 days. So I have 7 days to do as much research on pitching as I can and put one together. I’m having a bit of a nervous breakdown!

But I am coming to terms that whether good news comes from these pitches or not, it will be an invaluable experience.

You have to step out of your comfort zone in order to succeed. If you want amazing things to happen, you gotta start doing amazing things!

 

Cheers,

Missy

Songs and Stories

Hello readers,

This week we lost one of the greatest writers of our time, Maya Angelou. I have read a bit of her work and it’s really something special. She was very intelligent and her ‘voice’ was very unique.

I for one will certainly miss having her around. It would seem that everything she said had a purpose and was well thought out with many meanings. One of my favorite quotes of hers was,

“A bird doesn’t sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.”

I think this quote speaks loud to writers.

We don’t write because we have answers, we write because we have a story.

No matter what you write, there is a message you are trying to convey.

As a writer, you need to trust that the readers will come to their own conclusion. That’s what is so magical about sharing your stories. Everyone reads the same words but end in different places.

So don’t feel like you need to have the perfect answer in your writing. It may feel like a solitary experience for a writer but it’s meant to be shared. Books are not meant to be listened to in silence, they are conversations.

 

Cheers,

Missy

To Edit or Not To Edit, That is the Question

Hey!

Long time no blog. I was cast as Diana in Anne Of Green Gables the musical and we just rapped things up. My life consisted of waking up, going to the theater for practice and warm-ups, getting my costume on, makeup and hair, performing, and going home to go to sleep and repeat. It was pretty intense there for a while but it was super fun! An experience I will always remember.

But I have to say, it’s nice to have a normal schedule again and have time to get together with friends and write!

The first thing I did when life slowed down was start querying! It has been about a year since I’ve read one of my favorite manuscripts and it caused me to have a bit of a nervous break down.

When I first finished that manuscript and edited it like a crazy person, I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. I read it now, and I still think it’s a fantastic story and has great elements, but I’m finding sentences that make me cringe.

On one hand, that’s a good thing. It means I’m growing as a writer. But on the other hand it makes me feel a bit discouraged. I’m left with the decision of, do I return to that manuscript and edit it through again? Or should I move on and continue with writing my current project?

I don’t know!

This particular manuscript is my baby. I love all my books, but that one in particular speaks to me in a special way. I think it stands out, I can think about the plot and my ideas for the rest of the series for endless amounts of time and never get bored.

But when is enough, enough?

I still don’t know the answer to that question. I’ve blocked off the entire weekend to write, so hopefully I’ll figure it out.

What do you guys think?

 

Cheers,

Missy