This is the novel I've been working on since 2010. It's finished. Kind of. How on earth do people decide their novel is truly finished?? It has gone through revisions. I sent it to some Beta Readers, who gave me feedback. I chewed on said feedback and applied it to the novel to make it better. And then I took the entire manuscript and changed in from past tense to present. Which sucked. I did that in about a week because I needed to have that done before I sent it to Amazon for this contest they had going on. This was in December.
I didn't make it past the first round, which was based solely on Pitch. A Pitch is kind of what you read on the inside flap of a novel when you decide whether or not you want to read it. Except...it's not really like that. The pitch sells your book to the agent, so it has to have voice, show why they should care about the protagonist, show the main plot--with the ending!--and tell why this story is different from any other story. And all of this has to be told in as few words as possible. Some say 500. Some say 200. It depends on what the agent requires. Oh, and it has to really wow off their pants.
Try this. It's hard.
So, I learned I'm not skilled at pitch-writing. I'm soaking up anything I can find about this art so I can send a much better pitch next time.
I haven't yet touched Capture Me Strong since December because all of that was so intense I just needed a break from it for the sake of sanity. It is now time to pick it back up and give it one last thorough round of edits before I send it back out to agents whom I admire.
I've started the next novel in the meantime. I worked it out for a few months before I finally started a messy first draft this month for Camp NaNoWriMo. My goal is a rough draft of 40k words by the end of July. As I write this (with seven days remaining), I stand at 10,275 words. I don't know if I will make this deadline because I've been busy with my best friend's wedding! Yay! Also, my back is inflamed, so my doctor prescribed a muscle relaxer which I think they got confused with a horse tranquilizer. But I am trying my best. This is practice for when I have real-life deadlines one day, so I take it seriously. But some things are unavoidable. Like my bed while I'm on horse tranquilizers.
For four days last week, I worked as a freelance writer, writing articles for websites. I hated it mostly because I was getting paid $0.60 per 500 words, and it took up all my work time so I couldn't work on my novel. I'm sure freelancing works for some people, but I don't have it in me to work my way up to the high-paying stuff, and I value creativity too much to write about dentistry in Fayetteville, NC. So, I finished everything assigned to me and told the guy I was moving in another direction.
I'm also trying to build a platform so I have a built-in audience when an agent does agree to work with me on my book. Would you be so kind as to Follow me on Twitter @Je55ieMullin5 and Like my author Facebook page? Thank you a million times for those of you who already have!
Finally, the hot topic with authors today is traditional publishes vs self-publishing. I'm leaning toward traditional because that has always been my dream, but people say self is a good way to get to traditional. So, what do you guys think? Leave a comment below!
Much love,
Jessie
PS, here's a picture.
