Here's the thing about #PitchWars

So here's the thing about this #PitchWars you've been seeing dominate your Twitter feeds. It's awesome. The basic rundown is that you submit a shiny MS into a pool of other shiny MSs, and you wait and see if a published author-mentor person takes your shiny MS bait. If chosen, your mentor will help you make your shiny MS worthy of burning retinas (in a good way) so you can submit the even shinier MS into another pool where agents fight over the submissions like an author-agent version of the Hunger Games.

Sounds AMAZING, right? If you can't decipher my gab above, here is where you can find everything there is to know about #PitchWars.

Now for the reality check. Not all of you will be picked. There is so much talent out there, and what I've gleaned from the #PitchWars feed, that statement is a correct one. There are a lot of amazing mentors out there, including my mentor from last year, Trisha Leaver. That being said, they can't pick all of you. Last time I heard, they can only pick three. So yeah, that kind of sucks.

But.

BUT.

No matter what your personal results will be from entering #PitchWars, all of you will walk away with something, if you go into this with a good attitude and an open mind. If you get picked, great! Congratulations, do a happy dance, have some cake! You now have an amazing team consisting of a genius mentor and some spot on CPs/cheerleaders.

But if you don't get picked, hey that's okay too.

This is the perfect time for you to form bonds with your other #PitchWars applicants. Check each other out; see if their genre matches yours. Form YOUR OWN team before the mentors even make their picks! You guys are after the same thing: YOUR BOOK PUBLISHED. The journey is long and arduous with about a billion years of waiting. Why not make some allies along the way? Form a team that will be there for you when you get THE CALL from your dream agent, or when you've broken your fingers in half because you've edited into infinity. And when you finally land a shiny deal at a publishing house, they'll be there squealing loudly and making a scene wherever they are. And you'll do the same for them.

So whether or not you get picked for #PitchWars, know first that the publishing business is just one big cesspool of subjectiveness, and by extension so is #PitchWars or any writing contest. And know second, that you have the possibility to take away from this experience the best family of supporters you've ever had, and it just may take some initiative.

I didn't get my agent from winning #PitchWars last year. What I got was a family. And in my experience, my group is still with me today and not a day goes by that I don't think about them and am so grateful for their help/camaraderie/laughs.

It takes a village to write a book. Start building your village now.