This week in Twitter Contests

Oh man, this week has been crazy for me!  Which is a good thing, I promise.  It started on Saturday when my oldest son turned 8 and was baptized!  On the same day I took part in #CPMatch on twitter.  CPMatch is where you post a quick tidbit about your book and see if anyone else in Twitterland, who also has a finished manuscript, wants to become a critique partner.  Well, I ended up with two and both their books are so great so far!

Then fast forward to Wednesday.  Wednesday was holy-hecka crazy.  Two Twitter contests and I took part in both.  The first was #Pitch2Pub and then later in the day was #NewAgent.  Whew!

#Pitch2Pub required you to create a 140-character pitch to give to 27 publishers.  If they liked your pitch they would favorite it and then you submit your book to them.  Well, I had 6 publishers give my pitch a favorite.  SIX!

Here is my pitch:

20y/o fix everything Jemma takes in substance abusing rock star crush then finds love in the one guy she never coming. #Pit2Pub #NA #CON #R

Let me tell you, summing up your novel in 140-characters is NOT easy.  I wrote at least a dozen before settling on the one above.  I'm still researching the publishers and will be submitting my manuscript to at least two of them soon.

And back to #NewAgent.  So this contest is a little more intense.  It's a mentoring contest with published authors and new agents in the industry.  It sounds like an amazing opportunity and I hope I get selected.  For #NewAgent you submit the meat of your query letter and the first 250 words to the host and then the mentors read through them and select the ones they are considering mentoring.  They had over 250 entries, so my competition is fierce!

Here is what I submitted:

Title: Chasing Forever
Word count: 71,000
Genre: NA Contemporary Romance

Query:

Twenty-year-old Jemma Bowers always dreamt of marrying a rock star and when the rocker of her dreams ends up in her care she begins to feel she’s bitten off more than she can chew. Sex, drugs and rock-n-roll don’t have a place among the rules she’s created to avoid heartbreak.

Troubled by the death of her mother and then her father’s abandonment at an early age, not to mention a traumatic miscarriage at seventeen, Jemma finds herself caught between rock star, Jordan Capshaw, her teenage fantasy crush and the real-life affections of someone she never saw coming. A budding relationship with Vic Harper, a swoon-worthy firefighter from her past, and the failing health of the one person Jemma could always count on, just may be the driving force to push Jemma to break the rules she created three years ago in order to protect her heart.

CHASING FOREVER, is a new adult contemporary romance novel complete at 71,000 words, and is told from two points of view about a girl who tries to hard to keep her distance in order to save herself from heartbreak and a rock star determined to prove his father wrong.

First 250 Words:

I haven’t kissed anyone in over a thousand days, so when my date, Cody, leans in for the customary end-of-the-first-date-kiss, I step away, bringing my fist to my mouth and pretend to cough.

“Sorry,” I say, quickly trying to come up with a valid excuse as to why I dodged his kiss.

“I’ve been fighting a cold or something for a couple days.” Lame? Yes. Effective? Apparently. He backs away, shoves his hands in the pockets of his khaki Dockers and clears his throat.

“Alright, well…goodnight. I’ll call you.” He walks away from the door to my dorm and I have the distinct feeling I’ll never hear from him again; so much for Trish’s attempt to have me break my no dating rule.

“How’d it go?” Trish asks eagerly as she looks up from painting her toenails an obnoxious hot pink color. She’s wearing a thin-strapped pink camisole and matching pink shorts. Her silky black hair spills over her bronzed shoulders and not for the first time, do I wish I had her body. Instead, I’m stuck with my five foot four inch frame with subtle curves. I’m stacked well for my size, but if I had Trish’s height I might feel more comfortable in my skin.

I plop down on my bed, which sits across from hers, sigh and pull my pillow over my head. “It was fine until the end and I pretended I was coming down with something so he wouldn’t kiss me.” I cringe as I await her reaction.

I am Twitter...pated?

I'm kind of loving Twitter...

...Which could be a problem...

I watched a webinar this afternoon with Barry Cunningham of Chicken House (publisher of JK Rowling's Harry Potter) and the author of Breaking Butterflies by M. Anjelais which was hosted by the great people of NaNoWriMo.  It was fun and informative!

But the best part of the webinar is that M. Anjelais offered to answer questions on Twitter after the webinar.  So naturally I followed her and then answered one of her tweets:

@anjelais "PEOPLE PEOPLE PEOPLE. I would like to know what all writers out there are currently working on. Tell me about your current ventures!"

So here is the *Twitter Pitch* of my current work in progress:

@writerkristie "Relationship-scarred fangirl breaks all her own rules as she becomes the muse of her substance abusing rocker crush. NA Contemp"

And guess what?!?  M. Anjelais responded by favoriting my tweet as well as gave me a very nice response:

@anjelais "Would definitely read this! Breaking rules and substance abuse are themes that I like seeing explored in fiction."

Obviously I am stoked that my *pitch* was received well, but that she liked the sounds of my novel too!  Gives me the oomph to get the story of Jemma and Jordan on paper so that others can one day read it.

Thanks M. Anjelais for being kind - it means a lot to us little people :)  Now go and buy her book!

clicking on the photo will take you to Amazon where you can happily purchase a copy!

"The closest he will ever come to happiness is when he's hurting her. Will she let him? A beautiful and twisted story of first love and innocence lost -- written when the author was just eighteen.

Sphinxie and Cadence. Promised to each other in childhood. Drawn together again as teens. Sphinxie is sweet, compassionate, and plain. Cadence is brilliant, charismatic. Damaged. And diseased. When they were kids, he scarred her with a knife. Now, as his illness progresses, he becomes increasingly demanding. She wants to be loyal -- but fears for her life. Only the ultimate sacrifice will give this love an ending."