At the beginning of the month, I entered a contest called Pitch Madness, organized by the lovely Brenda Drake. Writers sent in a 35-word pitch, and the first 250 lines of their manuscript. This year, there were something like 520+ entries, and slush readers went through to choose the top 60 as finalists. Tomorrow, these finalists will have their entries posted on host blogs where participating agents will stop by and “bid” against each other to see pages.
I’m going to be honest. I thought I didn’t have a chance. I love my little book, but it’s a little weird. I have two POVs, and the one who opens the book isn’t the cheeriest person on the planet. And 520 entries is a lot. That meant only about 11% of the entries would final.
Still, when they announced the finalists one by one last night on Twitter, I was on the edge of my seat. And then my title popped up: The Madmen’s City. Much excitement commenced.
So, tomorrow my excerpt and pitch will go up on Team Library’s blog, and I’m both nervous and excited that tons of random people on the internet as well as some wonderful agents are going to be reading my work. Eep. But no matter what happens in the agent round, I’m so incredibly happy that my pitch got chosen to final. Fingers crossed.
Jen Hayley 