NaNoWriMo is upon us again, and honestly I can’t remember how I got through November without it. What did I do before I associated Fall, not with blazing leaves or warm scarves, but with word counts? Did I ever have free time in the month when I wasn’t mapping out worlds or madly people watching in the hopes that I would find some bit of drama to relentlessly use?
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| No, don’t pull them off yet. Let’s see where this goes. Credit |
Now, don’t get me wrong, I write when it isn’t November. Really! I do! But the word count scoreboard is a different thing altogether, it makes you spend every waking moment a) thinking about writing and b) feeling bad that you aren’t writing. Or even c) talking to other people about writing.
That last one is actually one of the hardest for me. Because whenever I tell someone about NaNo one of the first questions is, “so what are you writing?”
And trust me, “stuff” is not the proper answer.
The problem is, I have a story. I really like the plot and the characters amuse me. Sure, I kind of hate the entire thing right now but I’ve been through this rodeo before. I know that’s just NaNo. Any time you’re playing to the word count rather than a muse you’re going to write crap. In fact, you’ll write a lot of crap.
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| Let’s just skip the middleman. Credit |
So what is my problem? I’m just not very good at pitches. And trust me, this is a bad thing. When you want to move forward with your story and make it a reality, pitches are essential. Say you’re trying to find representation with a literary agent, for example. All you have is one short letter to sell yourself and your story in, a letter which is stuffed in a pile filled with hundreds of other letters and skimmed by an intern before it’s tossed in the reject pile. I know, I’ve been that intern.
But don’t just trust me. Check out what the Book Doctors have to say:
“A great pitch is one of the most powerful and underestimated tools any writer can have in his/her quest to be published successfully. From landing an agent and a book deal, to self-publishing well, to getting traction online, to attracting media, to convincing booksellers that they must carry your book, to letting readers know why they should buy your book, the perfect pitch is the goose that will lay your golden publishing egg. Find out how to craft and dynamite pitch. And be sure to bring your pitch with you, even if it’s far from perfect!”
The Book Doctors themselves are actually a great team of people. They travel the country running Pitchapalooza’s, events where random audience members try to sell their story in under a minute. Their panel of judges critiques the ideas and offers suggestions and, if they really like the pitch, helps the author find an agent.
Even if you don’t make it on to the stage yourself, simply listening to other people’s pitches can do an author a world of good. But what if you can’t make it to one of their events? What can you do?
Well, there are books. And websites. And workshops. But really, the best thing to do is exactly what I find so hard.
Practice.