You've been very quiet lately. How are you? Is life keeping you busy and making it hard to find time to write? I've missed getting to talk to you about your story, and I hope it's going well for you.
I've been keeping busy too. There's this great writer's group in my town that I've joined up with. We meet in this cute frozen yogurt shop and take turns reading bits from our works in progress. The first time I read was so scary! I was sweating and my mouth was dry. I could feel the heat reddening my face. My eyes stayed glued to my computer screen the whole time because I was afraid to see their reaction. But you know what? I finally get why it's so important to read your work out loud.
Last week someone at writer's group asked me about The Magic Wakes and I bungled through some explanation. It wasn't very good and it should have been as much as I've talked about my book the last month. However, my bungling gave me an idea. I want to hear how you are doing, and I want to hear about your story. So...
Please email me a 50 word introduction to yourself and then a 200 word pitch for your book. It doesn't have to be a finished book. Just practice telling me about your main character and main plot. It'll help with that query later on and if you practice saying it out loud you'll be able to tell anyone who asks about your story.
Sound good? Oh, and in case you forgot, my email is unicornbellsubmissions @ gmail.com. I'll post your pitches and all of us at UB can share our thoughts on how well it works. Send them to me by midnight Monday night and I'll post themTuesday-Friday.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Your's truly,
Charity Bradford
8 comments:
Holy crap this is the best idea ever! Now to write a pitch....
I don't have a current project to pitch, but what a sweet letter and great idea! And good for you for reading your story out loud! I had a critique session at a conference last year and I had another girl read for me (she had a great reader voice so I said, "Hey, you wanna do mine?"). I'm working on not being such a chicken :)
LOL, I think it's harder to have someone else read it aloud with me sitting there for one reason--where do I look??
Here's to both of us learning how to not be a chicken.
Yay! Yes, write a pitch and send it over. As hard as it was to read in front of a group, it was easier than reading out loud to myself. I must have a repressed ego that needs to perform. :)
Looking forward to seeing your pitch.
You're right about the importance of reading out loud. I convert my edited manuscript to pdf and turn on read out loud. The American voice reads my words back to me. Would you believe it, I find corrections that need to be made on nearly every page.
What a great idea!
Oh my goodness, I totally know what you're talking about! Once someone asked me what my book is about and I actually freaked out and said, "I don't know anymore! Stop asking!"
LOL, that's a great answer! I'm going to use it next time someone asks me. ;)
Post a Comment