Pitch Wars Excitement

And we're live!

My mentee, Megan Paasch, is #56 on Brenda's blog today with her exciting New Adult fantasy, Charlotte Elemental. For the last couple of months--ever since I chose her as my mentee on September 3--we've been digging through her manuscript to clean it up and polish it, working on her pitch, and having a grand old time doing writer things.

You don't get to know what those are. If you're a writer, you probably already know. If you're not, you never will. Nyah.

Megan's short pitch for her book:

When an Elemental chooses Charlotte as its host, her days as a latte-peddling student are over. Charlotte’s only hope is Liel–a disenchanted Fae sent to kill her. Liel defies his kin to pursue a cure instead, but if he fails, Charlotte’s growing Elemental powers could destroy humankind and Fae alike.

You can read the first page on the book's Pitch Wars page. And you will notice, if you peek, that as of this writing she has one interested agent already. ;)

I knew she would get nibbled! I knew it!

New Adult is a weird category, though; historically, fantasy and science fiction haven't bothered identifying themselves as NA because we've always had characters in the late teens/early twenties categories finding their adult selves and coming of age during the part of their lives that comes after puberty. So I hope the New Adult categorization doesn't push too many agents away since some of them assume New Adult only works as romance. The book could work being sold as adult fantasy too.

I'm an excited little bunny and I can't wait to see what happens with her submission--to say nothing of the upcoming Alternate Showcase on the I Write for Apples blog, in which my alternate Natalka Burian will be participating with her incredible Adult Literary, Everything Is Flowing.

We're gonna rock this joint.

But even if nobody gets signed from my team through the contest, I think they are both quite close to being gathered up and loved on by agents. I don't know how much I helped--I know I made some kind of drastic suggestions to both of them, which is kinda different from last year--but I really hope I pushed them in what is ultimately the right direction. And if nothing else, we've formed some relationships that I'm sure will continue beyond the contest.

I'm so proud of my team and can't wait until their future as successful authors becomes the present. :)