#AMWRITING...Again

Once upon a time I thought I'd write a book.

So I did NANOWRIMO and a book happened. I sent it to some beta readers (aka. friends and family) and got some decent feedback and some discouraging (but well deserved) feedback. That book I put away and have been ignoring for nearly six years. 

In the meantime, more NANOWRIMOs happened and I somehow got addicted to participating. More books happened. But none of them ever got finished.

Until this past year, and I finally finished Nano Book Two.  It took me one month to write 50,000 words and one year (seven years later) to add 13,000 more words to it and call it "finished." 

This weekend I plan to (you know I can always chicken out still!) go to the next step with this story... and enter it into a thing called Pitch Wars. 

Why am I doing this? I have no idea! Mostly for the experience. And maybe the off chance that someone thinks my story sounds fun and unique. And because there is literally nothing to lose, except maybe some confidence. And seriously, that confidence is so low that, there's LITERALLY (and I literally use that word for its literal definition!) nothing to lose. 

This contest is a really cool thing where a list of published authors called MENTORS look over the submissions and choose someone they want to help through the process of querying an agent. So if they like your story, they will help you do all the things to get it better. 

To enter I have to submit three things:

• the first chapter (or first ten pages)
• a query letter
• a one page synopsis
• choose and submit to four mentors with wish lists that match my story

Doesn't sound too hard, right? Well, think again. First of all, my book doesn't have chapters. Second, I've never written a query letter before. And third, have you ever tried to summarize 63,000 pages into one page? (LOL, you might say I've done it a thousand times here on this blog, yes? But also, I have never done for my OWN story and I can see just how much actually happens in said story that you have to LEAVE OUT when summarizing! It's painful!) Finally, all the mentors sound awesome and bottom line, I just want to curl up and read all THEIR books!

Anyway, here's to going out of my comfort zone and being brave and succeeding by just DOING it. I'm really not expecting anything, but I wanted to try just to prove to myself, if no one else, that I'm back on board and serious about this writing thing. Again. 

And if nothing else, I hope to make yet another effort to connect to the writing community and find my people. Because it's absolutely true that this writing thing is going nowhere without people in my corner. 

Maybe you are asking what book I'm submitting to this contest? Well, it also just happens that we have to have a 35 word pitch ready for this thing too, even though that's not part of the official submission. 

So here goes:

High school in the 80s can be rough! Note passing between two best friends is one way to survive the struggles of boys, bridge building and baby sibling number six.

Wish me luck!