Live Pitch Contest... with VLOGS! O_O

Go here for details

So, you may already know that I majored in Theatre Arts. Where I took scads of acting classes. This after I was the Speech and Drama Stirling Scholar for my Utah high school. I'm currently employed as a trial lawyer. I talk for a living. I talk in front of people for a living. I love talking to large crowds of people. Or small crowds of people. Or just to people. I have never once in my life been accused of shyness. (Anyone who knows me is laughing right now at the very idea.)

So why am I so terrified of recording myself giving my pitch and then posting that pitch online?

Talking? No problem.

Being on camera? Nope--I was in a student film in college and had tons of fun.

Pitching? Mildly terrifying, but I've done it before and survived nicely.

Proving to the world at large that I'm rather a fool? Eh. I'm a blue personality, so I crave intimacy in any form. The more you know about me, the happier I am. You'll probably think my foolishness is endearing. Or something.

Is it creating the vlog? Maybe--I've never done that before. I might suck at it. I might also be able to use this as the perfect excuse to finally purchase a webcam. (I know, I know. Living in the Dark Ages, blah, blah, blah.) And technology toys have never frightened me. Nor computer programs. And I'm a wiz at googling "How to create a vlog." And following instructions.

But, you guys . . . normally public speaking includes someone to talk to. Someone I can adjust my voice and facial expressions for. Vlogs are filled with semi-planned semi-spontaneity recorded in a vacuum. I suck at semi-planned semi-spontaneity--especially in a vacuum. Ditto at planned quirkiness. How does one script for personality? But if I don't script for personality, won't it figure showing up is optional? Surely a personality-free pitch is worse than no pitch at all!

Also, where should I film the video? If you were looking out my monitor at this moment, you'd see the bathroom door behind me. And the hall where my kids sometimes hang up their backpacks. Might be distracting. But is the view of the dining room's dirty blinds any better? The TV? The front window, currently covered by sheet-curtains?

This is why two of the organizers of the upcoming Pitch Live! contest teamed up to talk me off the ledge on Twitter on Monday. The first one is me replying to Brenda's tweet announcing Leigh's sample-vlog.

They're so nice, right? I mean, who can say no to these girls?

So I should do it, right?
*runs screaming into the night*
*feels ashamed of self*
*gathers courage*
*seeks a sticking-place*
*realizes she has run out of screws*

Anyway, any advice would be appreciated. I'd like to learn how to edit out the boring parts, where to look, what to say... etc. Please feel free to answer the questions I don't know enough to ask. Are there any free video editing software programs that can help me spruce it up? Help!

Also, you all should totally join in the torture fun. Misery Party loves company, after all.

You gonna play?

GUTGAA Agent Week!

The Gearing Up to Get An Agent--Agent Pitch Contest is in its final round! If you're not following on Twitter already, the #GUTGAA hashtag is still going strong, so go! Talk!

Since I love all things GUTGAA, and really loved hosting, I thought I'd make it easy for you all to find the finalists who started here on my blog:

October 1 Update: Below is the final tally. Congrats to everyone!

#1 A CITY IN THE AIR is now Agent Pitch Finalist #39
#5 EXISTENCE  is now Agent Pitch Finalist #38--and has a request!
#9 THE LONG-TIMERS is now Agent Pitch Finalist #37--and has 3 requests!
#10 AGAINST THE FALLING MOONS is now Agent Pitch Finalist #36
#16: THE DESIREE is now Agent Pitch Finalist #35--and has a request!
#23 THE BEAUTY OF DESTRUCTION is now Agent Pitch Finalist #34--and has a request!
#27 AFTERLIFE  is now Agent Pitch Finalist #33
#32 BETWEEN THE CURRENTS is now Agent Pitch Finalist #32
#34 DIVINE  is now Agent Pitch Finalist #31--and has 3 requests!
#36 WATER LILY is now Agent Pitch Finalist #30

Also, one of the great things about the no-comments-except-for-agents rule is that you can go through the entries on the main page and easily see who is getting requests! Our entries start on the third page back, here. I'll try to get the requests above updated each night so everyone can see the awesome.

Good luck to everyone in the finals!!

Les Mis!!!

My junior year of high school, I went on choir tour from Sandy, Utah to Seattle, Washington. We rode in a tour bus. It took about (checks Google Maps...) 14 hours. At the beginning of the trip, a friend lent me her cassette tape (if you young un's reading this don't know that that is, Google it) of Les Misérables. I plugged it into my walkman (yes, I'm OLD) and turned it on. I spent almost the entire trip with my hands clamped over my headphones to block out the party going on around me, absorbing the beauty of this musical. Later, another friend who had seen the musical live and purchased the extended soundtrack spent three glorious hours describing each scene to me as we listened to it together.

One of my greatest sadnesses is that I've always lacked the funds to see a lot of live theatre. So I've never seen Les Mis live. (Yeah, I majored in Theatre Arts. My priorities are WAY out of wack.)

Which is why I was so ecstatic/thrilled/weepy when I saw this:



YOU GUYS! Can anything be more wonderful?

Edit: OH! A trailer! This is pretty dang wonderful, too!

GUTGAA Round One Results

Whew! What a tense few days! Gearing Up to Get An Agent Round 1 was a resounding success, and I had a blast watching my four judges agonize over their votes--and tweeting them the second they were made!

To help me keep track, I made the following spreadsheet, which is just too pretty to keep to myself:

See how pretty?

Since you might not be able to read the thing, here are the ten finalists from my blog, with links to their awesome entries and the number of votes they got. All 2-votes in the finals also received a tie-breaker vote:

#1 A CITY IN THE AIR (2 votes)

#5 EXISTENCE (3 votes)

#9 THE LONG-TIMERS  (2 votes)

#10 AGAINST THE FALLING MOONS (2 votes)

#16: THE DESIREE (4 votes)

#23 THE BEAUTY OF DESTRUCTION (2 votes) 

#27 AFTERLIFE (3 votes)

#32 BETWEEN THE CURRENTS (3 votes)

#34 DIVINE (2 votes) 

#36 WATER LILY (2 votes) 

Congratulations to all the finalists! We're all going to be rooting for you in the agent round!

I was going to do a post with everyone's real name, etc, but I think it will be best if you all just reveal yourselves in the comments on your own entries. That way I don't out someone who would rather have remained anonymous.

I think I'll also get permission to tell you the real identities of our judges, soon, so stay tuned.

And now a word to those who didn't get any votes. There were 17 of you right here on my blog and more scattered throughout the contest. I was one of them: I didn't get any votes, either, though a couple agents said they would have voted for mine if only they had more votes. (They didn't really say how many votes they would have needed to vote for mine....) :) There are a few reasons your perfectly awesome book might not have been honored with a vote: 

1. The query and first page don't yet reflect the awesomeness of your book.
2. The judges were in the mood for a different kind of awesome.
3. Your competitors's entries were three-tenths of a hair more awesome than yours.

Whatever the reason, don't you dare give up. There were one or two trolls on the #GUTGAA twitter feed who thought it would be fun to gripe and complain about the judges, the set-up, the fact that Deana wasn't able to pull in actual agents to read the first 200... yeah. Nothing worth listening to.

Don't be like that. Take your comments, improve your query, and come back for the next contest. There's always another one, just around the bend.

Meanwhile, check out my compilation of everything I don't know about writing a query in the How NOT to Write a Query tab at the top of the page. Also, it looks like I'm going to be hosting a #GUTGAAlosers bloghop to help us all improve our queries--unless you're planning to enter the GUTGAA Small Publisher contest--in that case, the unofficial pitch polish blog hop is here.

So how was your experience? Learn anything? If I do a losers bloghop, are you going to play?

GUTGAA Pitch Contest Round One!

Welcome to the first round of the Gearing Up To Get An Agent Pitch contest! If you have no clue what GUTGAA is, go here. 

Everyone up to speed? Good.

This week I have the honor of hosting 39 GUTGAA First Round Entries in the genres of YA Steampunk, YA Adventure, YA Sci-Fi, YA Paranormal, and YA Dystopian--all of which are posted in their own little posts below this post, and can be browsed in the sidebar, as well. There are 205 total entries over 5 host blogs—SURPRISE! Deana let in 5 extras. ('Cause she's awesome like that.)

From now until Thursday, please comment on the entries and try to imagine which of these 39 entries would be in your personal top ten. Fiction is entirely subjective, so your top ten might not be in the actual top ten--which will go on to be among the fifty finalists presented to the agents next week--but if you love them, tell them! You can also make any constructive comments, but keep it nice! If you hate an entry and don't know how to fix it, keep it to yourself: troll comments will be deleted.

If your own entry is here, please comment on as many as you can, and let's all make sure everyone gets plenty of constructive comments. If you can't catch all 39, skip around and see which don't have as many comments. We all know how frustrating it is when we can't tell whether our entry needs work . . . or is just being overlooked.

While you're commenting, watch for these Covert Judges, who will be judging the entries on this blog and each selecting their Top Ten:

Miss Mary Mac

Missus Braidyhead

Beezer
Hopey

[Update 1: sorry, everyone, but I missed a last-minute judge change. Lumpy Space Princess is now judging elsewhere, but we're thrilled to have Hopey!]

If your entry is on my blog and if one of these awesome judges says "You've got my vote!" feel free to celebrate--but wait! Only ten entries will move on, so there is the very real chance that the judges will each vote for a different Top 10 and will have to call in another judge to break some ties. When the dust settles, there will be an official announcement on who made the top ten here, and the top fifty overall. Be patient and keep in mind that this is super-subjective. Lets all be professional while we gnaw our fingernails to bloody stumps, k?

You're welcome to check out the list of judges here and try to guess the real identities of our Covert Judges, but they won't be unmasked until they're done judging. (Lest the authors attempt bribery, blackmail, and Tweet-Begging. Which just isn't dignified.)

When you're done here, hop on over to the other host blogs:

Deana Barnhart (GUTGAA Mastermind Extraordinaire): Hosting Middle Grade, Picture Book, and New Adult Entries

Falling for Fiction: Hosting YA Fantasy and Urban Fantasy Entries

Cassie Mae: Hosting YA Contemporary, Suspense, Speculative, Supernatural, Magical Realism, and Historical Entries

Jaye Robin Brown: Hosting Adult Entries

[Update 2: Emily King was originally slated to cover the YA Contemps, etc, but that changed to Cassie May in plenty of time for me to notice. But I didn't until someone corrected my Host Tweet. And even then I forgot to update my blog with the correct info. This list is now correct. I'm pretty sure.]

The Super-Secret Covert Judges will be done with their judging by Thursday and the finalists will be announced on Friday.

Good luck to all the participants!

GUTGAA Pitch Contest #40: THE PARTIZANS

THE PARTIZANS

YA Paranormal

79,000

Query

Becoming a witch isn’t what sixteen-year-old Hannah Slaughtery expects when enrolls in an exclusive boarding school.  Neither is fighting against monsters she doesn’t believe in.

After an aerial assault by mythical basilisks, Hannah discovers she’s one of five students at the school that make up the next generation of Partizans, a band of supernatural warriors whose origins date back to the dawn of man. In order to stand against a ruthless and tyrannical empire of demons, Hannah must make a choice. Either she refuses her calling and enters a supernatural witness protection program to save her adopted family, or she overcomes her fear and accepts her demon-filled legacy.

Regardless of her decision, there’s one thing Hannah knows for sure: the carefree days of her youth have come to a screeching halt.

First 150 Words

Hannah Slaughtery’s courage faltered as the iron gate creaked open. The late afternoon sunlight filtered through the snow-topped pine trees as she steered her car through the fence, the only thing separating Piaculum Academy from the rest of the world. As she inched forward, something in the air sent a shiver down her spine. It was as if the wind was charged with bursts of electricity and her skin tingled from the connection.  She couldn’t explain why, but for the first time in her life, Hannah realized she felt safe. No. She felt like she was coming home.

Up ahead was a security checkpoint with tinted windows. As she pulled up to the window, a guard with a military haircut and aviator sunglasses opened the window and Hannah thought she caught a whiff of coconut sunscreen, which struck her as odd seeing as how it was early January.

GUTGAA Pitch Contest #39: THE VIDDEN

THE VIDDEN

YA Dystopian

58,000

Query:

Devonny is Vidden, an elite genetically enhanced faction of a futuristic society. At the age of sixteen she is commissioned by the Tagen to enter the Vidden Army for training. When one of her fellow recruits dies of a high fever, and another disappears, Devonny begins to suspect that the Tagen are plotting a way to get rid of those they deem unworthy.

After months of training the last mission the recruits must undergo is survival training in the Hinders, a place full of disease ridden marauders---zombie-like creatures---called Awders. Devonny is the only one who can sense when an Awder is near. When their former commander turns up as an Awder, Devonny knows something is horribly wrong. She is even more horrified to learn that her blood is the catalyst for a deadly virus the Tagen will use to “vaccinate” the population, a virus they are planning to give the citizens in order to eradicate the deadly disease.

Devonny must stop them from using the virus, but first she has to find a way to save herself and her fellow recruits.

First 150 Words:

A small line of other sixteen-year olds I recognize from the Academy wait to be let in. One boy in particular catches my eye.

Brendan.

I pretend not to notice and avert my gaze making sure my screen is up. The racing of my heart magnifies the rush I feel at seeing him.

One of the girls cries.

As soon as its my turn I stride up to the desk.

"Name?"

A soldier with short cropped hair on the sides and a long braid in back sits behind the desk. He has a large silver T on the right shoulder of his gray jumpsuit. He is Tagen.

"Devonny Wilcox."

He checks a list and directs me to another room with a jerk of his chin.

A metal exam table is in the center of the room. A woman stands near it with a clipboard in her hand.

I take a shaky breath and step forward.