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Delaware, United States
Deborah Hawkins, penned Debra Renée Byrd, began writing after a blank book project in elementary school and never stopped, fashioning stories based on her favorite TV shows and movies before creating more original works. She studied at the University of the Arts and Florida State University before settling down and graduating from Temple University. She now resides in her hometown of Dover, DE, where she spends most of her time at work or at church. She loves fantasies, superheroes, is a trekkie and a brown coat. She loves television and lives for Final Fantasy video games, having collected most of them. She has read a myriad of authors, and her favorite authors change whenever she finds a new book that changes her life... "When you can't run, you crawl. When you can't crawl...well, you know the rest." -Tracey, Firefly, "The Message"

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Thursday, December 5, 2013

A Day Late! (IWSG)

I haven't forgotten a Wednesday in a long time. *eek* Hopefully this still counts.

I usually post these at work, but I had a busy day, so I didn't get around to it. Monday, I joined the Pitch Wars trenches at the last (almost literally) minute, and now I'm biting my nails hoping and praying I get picked. I'm not stalking my own e-mail, because it's linked to my phone, so I know when I get a message. Contests make me nervous.

Showing my work to people in general makes me nervous. I might think it's genius, but it could be the opposite. And I'm one of those people who has poor luck with beta readers, so I'm going off of two (one great, one obvoiusly inattentive) critiques. But through it all, I actually shaved my manuscript down to 98k words, which I didn't think possible. I think I've said that already, but it bears repeating, since my first draft was about 125k. *30-second dance break*

What worries most is my query. I've had so many drafts of that little bastard, I don't know which one I'm on now. I'd like to think it's good enough to spark interest now, and at least people tend to ask for a few pages with the query so they can gauge better. So, wishing, hoping, praying, etc.

I'm going to go look at some on time IWSG posts, and you can, too, if you follow me to Ninja Alex-Sensei's Blog. :)

7 comments:

Molly/Cece said...

I hope the pitch war goes well! Good luck! You are awesome for being brave!

Kim Van Sickler said...

Good luck with Pitch Wars! I entered too. At first I was watching the Twitter feeds, but I gave that up when I realized my mentor picks weren't tweeting much and what was the point of getting my insides twisted up into knots over vague comments that probably had nothing to do with me! I agree that queries are a bear. Trial and error. Trial and error. Do keep trying to get feedback on the query. You'll improve it faster that way.

Sherry Ellis said...

Good luck! It sounds like you've put a lot of work into your manuscript, so somebody out there should want it!

Julie Flanders said...

Good luck! Fingers crossed you get picked. I give you credit for jumping in, showing my work to people makes me nervous too, it's nerve-wracking!

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

Praying you get good news!
If it's the best you could do, both the story and the pitch, then that's what really matters. Have faith in what you wrote.

Heather R. Holden said...

I'm just like you when it comes to showing my work. (Like, I'm still a nervous wreck whenever I post a new comic strip. *head-desk*) Wishing you the best of luck with Pitch Wars and that you hear something about that soon so you can start feeling less nervous!

David T List said...

Congrats on that major tightening of your novel!
I hate queries. So much. That's a small part of why I've chosen to go rogue... I mean indie.
Happy late IWSG to you!