Well who knew my first ever blog post about writing (and first proper blog post ever I might add) would be to say that I won 3rd place in a twitter pitch contest. All the winning pitches can be found and are showcased on the Wonder Writers website.
For those not in the know, a twitter pitch contest is where you pitch your book in 140 characters following any rules set by the pitch competition.
This wonderful competition was run by Wonder Writers, a writing mentoring service set by some lasso of truth types of writing knowledge. It was run over the weekend of 2nd September 2017. To make the twitter pitches even more tricky you have to #WonderPitch hashtag within your 140 word pitch, this is also useful to spy...[cough]....I mean read and support the other fabulous pitches. The winning pitches are great and to be honest through out the weekend as all the different pitches came up I was going 'would read that, would read that, would read that etc..'
The winners were announced via twitter at 2pm on Sunday 10th September 2017 #WonderPitch Winners. I had a quick peek just after and scrolled through the honorary mentions then saw my twitter name. Eeek! 3rd. Dead chuffed. My reaction on twitter saved as newbie excited screenshot below
As pitching and summarising my novel is one of my big writing development goals for 2018. Seeing this improvement in 2017 and getting further feedback on my pitching is fantastic.
This leads on nicely to my prize. The very generous 3rd place prize is my choice of a query letter or synopsis critique. Both of these are on my development list. I went with synopsis. I attempted one this summer for this current work in progress. It was painful. I haven't dared read the thing back, I guess I better had now hadn't I?
Is this the first twitter pitch contest I've entered? No. It isn't. Getting your pitch down to a 140 characters is not easy. So I feel in the spirit of all good pitch competitions I should give an honorary mention to #PeerPitch, The twitter competition run by @ScribblersBlog(www.thescribblersonline.com), as the feedback I got back from their competition earlier in the year and following all the fab pitches in that competition really helped develop my own.
I recommend at least following the pitch competitions and learning from them and if you're brave enough, just have a go. Everyone is really friendly and supportive (writers are a nice bunch). Also it really helps you understand the heart and the stakes of your story.
My next personal adventure in pitching? Well there are two opportunities this week:
1. #TellAMH another twitter pitch competition going on this week. The Children's pitching opportunity is on Thursday 21st September 2017
2. Is attending Cardiff Book Festival's Pitch in the Pub with Cathryn Summerhayes, Curtis Brown on Friday 22nd September 2017. Also, there is an opportunity to practice a twitter pitch #CBFpitch by 3pm today ahead of Friday's event.
What do I hope to achieve by all this? My long-term aim is to get an agent for my book. Short-term, is to practice the skill of writing a pitch which captures my novel and GULP presenting a pitch in person. The latter is the next big one to conquer.... watch this space...