Starting a journey: Pre-PitchWars

I'm getting ready to start a journey.

or a least a crazy ride.

I'm entering Pitch Wars. This is a first for me. A first for everything to do with publishing. I haven't sent a query to anyone yet. This is a big step of me. I really hope I'm about to go on a crazy journey.

I'm reaching for the moon. About 3000 people entered Pitch Wars last year. The odds are not in my favor.

I'm scared of rejection.

I also know I have a lot to learn. My manuscript isn't perfect. The odds are standing against me, but I have worked hard all year and I can't quit now because of fear. Maybe just maybe I'll get picked! I can't wait for that moment.
But

I'm doing this!

I wish everyone who entering Pitch Wars: Good luck! 

~Annie

Boost My Bio

Welcome Pitch Wars Mentors and Hopefuls,

I'm Annie Gray. This is my first time entering Pitch Wars. It's both exciting and nerves racking for me. I have known about it for a while and finally feel confidence enough to enter. I would like to thanks the #turtlewriters over at Twitter for their support.

 I wanted to enter last year but my story wasn't ready yet. I got TMJ I wanted to enter so bad after looking over the mentors' wish lists. This motivated me to work hard on my novel this past year.

About my book:

Make a wish at the local coffee shop, The Coffee Barn.

Rumor has it, the baristas grant any desire, so be the consequence.

Seventeen-year-old Mercy, born with hearing loss, avoids bullies in the crowded halls and cafeteria, where she can't understand a word spoken. But when she witnesses a classmate kissing the young football coach during one of her detours, Mercy draws what she saw and doesn’t know who to trust with it. With her older brother and his girlfriend gone off to college, she has no protection or support at school—especially when her art teacher, the cousin of the football coach, discovers Mercy’s drawing and bullies her too. Alone, she wishes for the characters in her graphic novel to exist in real life.

Two strangers walk into town the day Mercy writes her wish on a coffee cup at The Coffee Barn. When one of the strangers crosses paths with her and pulls her from a car wreck, she’s shocked to learn he looks, walks, talks, and answers to the name of Liam, like one of her characters. She refuses to believe he’s the result of her wish.

Liam will to do anything for his sister, even follow a feeble clue to a find their aunt in a small farming town. If they find her it could mean a chance to have a family again and no more living from friend's house to friend's house. When the clue lead them to The Coffee Barn he catch a glimpse of Mercy. After he pulled her from a wrecked car she helped him find another clue.

In exchanged for helping him finding his aunt, he enrolled at her school in order protect her.

When Mercy realizes she’s falling in love with Liam, she must face the truth that he might only be her wish come true, who’s been compelled to care about her. To make matters worse, she’s not the only one who knows.

A few things that inspired CLARITY:

Switched at Birth

Dream Knight (K-drama)

In Jr. high, everyone sitting around a table getting up and leaving me once I sat down and not understand why since I couldn't hear in the crowded cafeteria.  

My own hearing loss.

The local cafe and my love of coffee.

Landon Pigg's Falling in Love at a Coffee Shop

Are You Having Doubt About Your Rewriting? Me Too.

Steps on for how to rewrite your novel.

1. Put it aside for a little while.
           

2. Read it.

I have read my novel.

I want to hide it under the bed never to let it see the light of day again.

Yeah, it's bad. It's embarrassing bad.

What was I thinking?

I wanted to start the rewrite on December 1st.  What day is it?  December 15!

I hoped that it wouldn't be much I had to work on this time, but this story still doesn't have a good villain or conflict. I thought I ironed this little crease out. Apparently not.

Once again I have a few good scenes but they mean nothing if I don't have good conflict. The parts where the conflict fade or doesn't exist are silly. I knew I didn't have a strong ending but I thought it was because I needed a break from the story. I took a two months break.

I want to enter a writing contest in August called PitchWars. Can I make it?

Self doubt has settled in like a fog in my brain, with a lock. A big one, the size of my head.

So my second piece of advice: read your story and find all plot holes.

You might keep finding them but don't let it freeze you like it has me.

Now I just want to take a nap or work on my to do list for the New Year's.  Or maybe I'll go work on this novel and let it live. Maybe.....

My Adventure of Rewriting My Novel Part 1

My first piece of advice is to put it aside. 

I say for 3-6 months if you can. Yes, writers who just finished your NaNoWriMo novel of 50,000 words put your precious book baby a way for 3- 6 months. 

Congratulation! You wrote 50,000 words in a 30 days! I'm telling you don't jump right into rewrite.

Personally, I think it's a quick way to hit burnout if you jump right into rewrite after finishing the first draft.

If you think you can't stand to be away from your precious for 3-6 months try a month.

I'm working on my 4th draft (I think ) of my NaNoWriMo novel from 2016. I finished the 3rd draft in October. So I put in a way for 2 months. 

The first time was 3 months, but I didn't write 50,000 words that November. It took me 3 months to finish writing it. That was my second time to try to write the same story idea. And I tried to rewrite it that July. 

Key word here is tried.

I'm not a fast writer. 

I think I've been working on this same story idea for 3 - 4 years. I happened to like what I wrote in November of 2016.

So first thing to do is to put aside that story. My advice is to work on something else. I know it will be hard but it'll be worth it.

Next post will be about what I discovered about my novel after re-reading it after 2 months. 

Should You Try NaNoWriMo if You're a Slow Writer?

I found this image here, and added the question.

Should you try NaNoWriMo if you're a slow writer?

Yes! (short answer)

(Long answer)

In case you don't know what Nation Novel Writing Month is, most people call it NaNoWriMo, it's a writing challenge where writers young, old, experience, and new from all over the world (not just the USA where the idea was formed) will dare to write 50,000 words in 30 days. 

If you want to sign up, you can click here to get to theNaNoWriMo's website or Google it.

Just so you know I'm not ready. I'm freaking out. I have decided on the names for my hero and heroine, Nathan and Lacey. I have one scene floating around in my head but it's not the opening scene. It's a meeting between the two love interests at a Ugly Christmas Sweater party.

Yes, I'm writing a Christmas romance this November, a different direction then my usual young adults novels that I have been trying to write for years.

If you feel like you can't write 50,000 words in 30 days I'll let you know something.  I have never "won" NaNoWriMo. According to the website I have been a member for 11 years. In that time I have never written 50,000 words by the deadline. 

So don't let that stop you from signing up for this amazing experience!

The most I wrote during that time was 26,002 words in 2015. I wrote 25,707 words last year. Both of these novels were different attempts on the same story idea. A story idea I did finish writing a 3rd rewrite last month.  I wrote the 2nd rewrite of that novel during Camp NaNaWriMo this past July.

I will write an 4th rewrite of that novel beginning December 1st.  I'm taking a break from this novel and starting something new for NaNoWriMo.

While I have never "won" the writing challenge, it has helped me write a complete novel and two very horrible can't be called novels...projects. Not sure I'll ever look at those again.  Those "novels" were not written in anyway called a fast manner. I'd write about 100-500 words a day through December-April. Will try my luck at Camp NaNoWriMo in April, but I usually didn't get anywhere near my 25,000 words goal. I'd continue to write the same novel for Camp NaNoWriMo in July. In August I'd see on Twitter the #PitchWars Mentors tweets and wish to the point of making myself sick, that I can enter but my novel was nowhere near readable.

I'm saying I'm a slow writer like you, but I enter NaNoWriMo every year. I love the support I find there. I love the writing advice/ pep talk I get every week, and love to look at the pep talk archive. My favorites are from Marissa Meyer, Maureen Johnson and Neil Gaiman to name a few. (Now, I want to go back and look at the archive again to find inspiration to get started)

I enjoy finding new writers on Twitter to write with during the writing sprints. Since it's all over the world there no telling who you'll connect with during this time. I have an amazing twitter group with people from all around the world I chat on twitter message with during this time. I think I've been part of the chat for two years. This would not have happened if I didn't sign up for NaNoWriMo.

Aslo you know how I said I wanted to enter an writing contest called #PitchWars over on twitter.  Well, I'm going to enter in August 2018, no matter what I'm entering. With the novel I wrote 25,707 words on last NaNoWriMo(2016.) I would not have this novel if it wasn't for NaNoWriMo.

I think you should go sign up. Leave your NaNoWriMo's ID in the comments when you do and I'll add you to my writing buddies. If you have twitter leave your twitter name and your need to join #TurtleWriters. It's the craziest group of writers I know on Twitter.

A little bit about my new NaNoWriMo project.

A short synopsis of my novel:

A single woman want to experience the magic of Christmas romance. She has a list of all things magical about Christmas. But she has two problems. One she's need a man and two she's lives in the South where it rarely snows, must less snow to have a sleigh ride before Christmas. A heartbroken man just want to make it through the season.

I really hope you join me!

I wish you happy writing, and a wonderful blessed day.

Book Review: The Third Kiss

Do you like the good guy that bad stuff happen to for no reason or do you like the bad boy that cause bad stuff to happen to him?

I wondered this as I read The Third Kiss by Kat Colmer. The story about Jonas, master of meaningless hookups. The perfect bad boy, right? I mean you read this and think "Oh he's going to find the girl who isn't a meaningless hookup. I can't wait!"  But then you meet Jonas, at his 18th birthday party and he receive a letter warning  him about a love curse. He has only three more chances, and by chances I mean.. you guess it, kisses to find his true love. If he doesn't kiss his true love he'll miss his chance.

So is the bad boy going to change his ways?

This was what I was hoping to read: the bad boy changes his ways before the curse get him.

But Jonas is a good guy, he's already given up his meaningless hookups ways. But the girls around him, including his sister and the girl he likes (his best friend) don't realized this. The girls at party are all like kiss me Jonas, and he's not interested but then the girls kiss him.

If this sound like a book you want to read, go buy the book. You'll love it. Don't read any farther on this review.

See...

I didn't finish this book. I don't care if Jonas find out why he's curse or if he and his best friend kiss and break the curse. I don't care.

 Jonas's is a good guy who has bad things happen to him. I want the bad boy that cause the bad stuff to happen and he need to fix it or a the good guy who makes the wrong decisions and messes up and has to fix it. I didn't see this in The Third Kiss by Kat Colmer.  Sorry but I didn't care about the good guy Jonas who wasn't driving the plot forward. 

With Self Doubt: Am I Good Enough?

 It was suggested over on Twitter that I write about Self-Doubt. I don't know about you but for me - talk about the Mother Lobe, the thing that many things flow.

I have self doubt in:

Searching for a job.

Dating (I wouldn't call what I do, dating. Don't have a clue how to put myself out there.)

And in writing.

I mean I suffered from self-doubt since I was nine years old in third grade. You know the year that girls start whispering, also the year I noticed that this hearing loss made me different. Something I never felt with my family, but at school that year I noticed it. It started when the other girls around me whispered. It grew to the overwhelm self hate and self doubt that I wasn't good enough.

I remember telling my mother that no one in my class liked me. She, of course, went to my teacher. I remember the confuse look on my teacher's face, because it wasn't true. I built it up in my mind from my own self dislike. I mean if you're talking to a group of girls on the playground and all at once they run away because in a spit second they decided to go play elsewhere and you didn't hear the one sentence that decided that. What would you think?

By the way this is also the year I realized that my spelling and reading skills were not at the level of my classmates.

I spent two hours in the class for the hard of hearing working on those skills. This also told me I was different. But that classroom was a safe place. I wasn't different from the teenagers in that class that were also hard of hearing. I was the youngest in the class.  

I think that the year my shyness grew to point that it was painful for me to come out of my shell to talk to anyone.

See lots of self doubt.

I didn't know about introverts and extroverts. I also didn't realize that the first time I meet someone I need to "learn" how they sound, how they talk and their body language .

I know this now so I'm quiet the first time I meet someone in a group, or since I've gotten older I learned how to get people talking so I don't have to.  

Over the years I searched for the thing called self confidence. I even went to an all girls' college because on the campus tour I heard that girls who went to all girls' school had more confidence. It shocked everyone that I chose to go to an out of town college. I was that shy.

I found self confidence for a little while. Well, enough to somewhat come out of my shell. It still not easy, when it come to talking to men for one thing. Like I said I have no clue how to put myself out there.

When it come to flirting I'm clueless. I don't how to flirt. Also if I picked up the body language that a guy's interested in me. I either tell myself that I'm wrong and the guy's being nice or I freeze. I have ran before. Like ran away from the whole soccer team at the university I attended.  Yup... there is a story there, sure is.  

Also I don't have a clue how to made the internet dating work for me either.

 I have a problem of thinking I'm not good enough to be loved, not in that way. I have a strange way of thinking that another girl would be better for this guy. I don't give myself much of a chance.

The same thing would be said for searching for a job. I don't have much confidence that I can do the job well. I haven't even got the job and I'm worried I'm not good enough. I didn't do my last job very well. I didn't have a clue, and the women who worked with me were so worried I'd take their job that they didn't help me.

I didn't want their job. When I started that job I was looking into going back to school and I thought about being a minister. Yes, a female minister. I was looking into going to seminary school. By the time I got laid off from that job ten months later I was so full of self-doubt I could feel it clawing at my back. I was no longer looking into going seminary school.

A few things happened in my family that it turned out not having a job meant I could help my family. It was a relief to do something good for my family.

But I was in a place where I thought I was bad a picking what I should do. Stuck in life. (still there)

To escape the self doubt I wrote novels.

But I had self-doubt there. About my writing. I mean I would think who I'm I kidding and write anyway. I wrote because I need to write. I needed to escape.  

By the way I wrote about my doubts with my writing in a short series:

Lack of Spelling Skill

Is My Story Good Enough?

Can I Write?

I have doubts about sharing this post with you.

I'm still searching for self-confidence.

I hope this help you realize you're not alone.