I’ve been aggressively entering RWA Chapter contests since December, and so far I’ve gotten results back from two. The first one I got pretty dang close (by a few points), but just this Friday, as I’m checking into my hotel in New Orleans and calming myself to pitch to my first agent in a little over an hour, I checked my phone. There, to my surprise, I saw an email that gave me the confidence boost I needed to go into the pitches (of course I forgot in my nervous state to MENTION this to the agents, but it’s all good).
The email was from the Washington, D.C. Romance Writers chapter of RWA to tell me I’d finaled (meaning one of the top 3) in the paranormal category for MUST LOVE BREECHES!! I’m so excited about this (can you tell?) It’s also a validation for me on my new opening– I’d completely scrapped it and been reworking it and so the Marlene contest is the first contest result with the new opening. The previous contest had the old opening, and I think there’s still one contest out there with the old one…
What happens next? My submission goes on to a judge in the publishing industry, who will then rank the submissions. The first place winner will get a free critique from author Kristen Painter!
FF&P Conference Update
This past weekend I attended my first writer’s conference and had a blast. Fellow conference goers told me, though, that the bar has been set high for me now, as others are generally not as good. It was a small conference, but I really liked that aspect, and others did too, It had a very intimate feel since you started recognizing faces pretty quickly and I met some really cool fellow writers. The panels were also very informative.
I ended up pitching to four agents, not three, and I’m happy to say that all four requested pages! Thank you guys for your help last week in getting that nailed down! I’m trying, though, to keep my expectations realistic — I’ve jumped another hurdle, but I still have many more in front of me. I plan to get those submitted by this weekend, and then I’m going to fry my brain playing an RPG computer game for about a week as a way to celebrate and detox (it’s been over a year!!) and then I’m going to start on a new WIP!
Thank you!
I’ve been very fortunate to have friends, family, critique partners and blog visitors who’ve helped me so much and I want to thank you for your support and constructive feedback, which has helped me grow tremendously as a writer! Thank you!
Congratulations on finaling! And glad you had such a good and successful time at the conference. Now I know who to ask for help when I’m ready to start pitching. 🙂
Congratulations. Such exciting news!
Congratulations! I know you must be super excited. 🙂
Woo-woo! How fantastic! 🙂
This is AMAZING news!
Hey Angela! Wow! Sounds like it went pretty well this weekend! Let’s get together this weekend and have some drinks on my porch to celebrate!
Awesome! Thank you!
That’s so exciting! Congrats on everything. I’m not surprised though. Your book is very, very good! Terrific job!
Great news, and great timing too. Congrats.
mood
Huge congrats, this is just fantastic..This is a start to even more good news to come…
Congratulations, Angela! Wonderful news. 🙂
Congratulations, Angela!! I love the New Jersey Romance Writer’s conference for the same reason… it’s small and didn’t feel overwhelmed.
Good luck on the submissions!!! And don’t forget to mention in your cover letters that you finalled in a contest!
Congratulations! 😀
Yahoooo, congrats!!! That’s AWESOME:)
Congrats, Angela! What a timely boost!
Yay, congrats Angela. You deserve it. 🙂
Yay! This is awesome!
It was great meeting you at the conference! I was doing a search on Fantasy on the Bayou for some links and saw your blog; I remembered you and thought I’d drop by. 🙂 Your pitch sounded great to me – I’m not surprised you got requests from every agent. Awesome about the final, too. Think I can ever follow in your footsteps? 😉 I hope to see you again next year!
Wow! That is insanely awesome! I’m so happy for you! No wonder you were missing from CC. 🙂 Can’t wait for your new WIP!