Loss of Focus? Never! Maybe. Hmm.

originally posted Feb 14, 2015, 4:11 PM by Kelly Lopushansky                                            

I have been distracted from my current goal of finding an agent (gasp!) because I've been completely engrossed in writing Truce Or Consequences and my real life.  With a teenager heading to High School next year, all sorts of things have been coming up.  On the plus-side, my teenager is showing responsibility by looking into admissions requirements for the colleges of his choice already and on his own.  I don't remember worrying about admissions requirements until later on, perhaps my junior year.  Of course, the graduation requirements met the admissions requirements back then, so all a student need worry about is getting a good score on the SAT or ACT and whatever they could do to distinguish themselves from other applicants.  Meeting the requirements just wasn't an issue.  So I'm proud to say that my husband and I are raising independent kids! But I can't drop my drive to get my book published, so yesterday I took part in a webinar for getting a book published and learned a lot!  Today I revamped my pitch (partly to shrink it down to 250 words and partly to just make it stronger) and submitted it to a pitch contest.  If I'm one of the lucky randomly chosen entrants, my pitch will be reviewed by experts and I'll actually get feedback!  Here's hoping. I'm also working on an entry for Pitch Madness.  On February 20th I'll get to submit a 35 word pitch and 250 from my novel.  If I'm chosen as a favorite, I may receive a request for more of the manuscript from an agent in March.  If you're interested in Pitch Madness see Brenda Drake's website for more information. I'm also prepping for #PitMad which is coming up in March on Twitter.  If the idea of pitching a book in 35 words is scary, try 140 characters, and include the #PitMad hashtag and a hashtag for the genre in that 140!  I think the hardest part for me is that HM:MTB really has three main characters and not two, and since the third is going to be in the next six books of the series, I feel like she has to be included in the pitch.  Clearly, in 140 characters I just can't squeeze it all in, so I may have to let her fade into the background on this one. Wish me luck!