On Writing - Dream Fulfillment in progress

June 3rd, I was debating myself over whether or not to pitch in PitMad the following day. Luckily, I have exceptional friends. Two called me to ask whether or not I'd pitch and when I waffled, they (screamed) cajoled me to go for it.

There was no denying their enthusiasm and they pushed into the PITCH camp. I fine tuned yet another Twitter pitch, and the following morning, I was revved up. Come to find out that Pitchwars/Pitch Madness added a new hashtag for Black authors #BVM for Black Voices Matter.

Bear in mind, I've pitched in PitMad before for the same manuscript. My pitches weren't that great, but I didn't know it at the time. I pitched my heart out to crickets. I'd pitched in DVPit (diverse voices pitch) 2019. One agent indicated interest by liking my pitch, but he passed away before signing me to his agency. I survived the rough and tumble of Pitchwars and the mentorship program and #ThisDarknessIsMine got fine tuned, structured and edited. When I pitched in January, I got interest from four agents, all of whom declined representation in the end. Rather three of whom declined representation and one of whom simply ghosted me (along with 95% of the mentees, so she's on our collective shit list).

That's the baggage I had to let go of for June 4th, and enter the contest with beginner's mind and a new well of endless hope.

I can't tell you how exciting the day was, but I'll try. With pitching contests on Twitter, the rules want retweets and comments from supporters, but LIKES are reserved for publishing professionals like literary agents, publishers and editors. They're sticklers for this, but I was advised not to be upset when non-industry-professionals like my pitches. There's an algorithmic metric for why, and I'll let it go at that.

I got dozens of likes from non-industry-professionals. I didn't sweat it.

I got hundreds of retweets.

The main takeaway is I got interest from 14 (FOURTEEN) agents and editors. I was simply over the moon, maybe even over Mars! The day's efforts were a solid golden opportunity, and I'd nearly talked myself out of putting my hat in the ring.

When it came down to the wire, two agencies offered representation. It's a writer's dream to get ONE offer. But I had two solid offers from heavy hitters to choose from and after a couple rounds of conversations, the choice was clear: Serendipity Literary. They're the largest African-American literary agency in the States and the president is a whirlwind, nonstop champion (who happens to have a pilot's license and flies planes in her leisure time).



A word about Kelly Thomas, who's representing me. She and I have a ton in common and every time she kept me in the loop about where she was in the manuscript, she always said, "I love this story and your writing is beautiful." Her passion got my attention, but when she mentioned #PublishingPaidMe, she won me over.

We're not going into negotiations willing to get lowballed. We know the score.

That's the key ingredient for a successful professional relationship. I'd always wanted a fighter to love my story and Michelle Delphinia's struggle because I knew the publishing game is a hard one, not for the faint of heart. Kelly is my champion and I believe we're going to kick some ass together!

Follow me on Twitter: @mackenzielitt13
Follow Serendipity on Twitter: @SerendipityLit


Have a magical day!
Mackenzie

On Writing - FUCK YEAH

I'm not known for clean language, particularly, so let me start off by saying

FUCKING-A

(c) Deposit Photos

The adult fiction writers who were mentored in Pitchwars 2019 made fucking HISTORY. Every single entry got at least one agent interested enough to request more. Getting an agent's attention is hard. Getting them to take action is even harder. I wrote 17 pitch drafts before my mentor and I said, "Yeah, that one."

It's an absolute honor to be included with such ferocious talent. Determined writers who won't listen to anyone telling them they're not good enough, even when they're telling themselves that.

Not good enough? Keep writing.
Not talented? Keep writing.
No one is going to read my shit? Keep writing.

Because we are good enough for the here and now. Right here, right now.
We are talented. We don't have to be the most talented, we have to go the distance.
We take the scrapes, the bruises, the critiques, the bad weather, the naysayers. We blow past the whiners, the quitters, and the ones who won't try.

Fuck it, I'm going for it.


My day is perfect.

Make someone else's day magical!
Mackenzie

On Writing - This Pitchwars thing is hard

One post to vent, cry, break stuff, wail, and generally complain.

Just kidding.

Pitchwars (for more on PitchWars, there's their website www.pitchwars.org, and also a podcast on Manuscript Academy's website at https://manuscriptacademy.com/podcast Episode #64) has been a fascinating journey requiring me to toughen my hide and buckle down to get the task done. I didn't know what to expect. Really, I had no clue whatsoever. At the outset, since all my beta readers said the pace of This Darkness is Mine picked up around Chapter 15 and they couldn't put it down until the end, I figured I'd only be rewriting and editing Chapters 8-14. Not so bad.

That is not how it turned out.

The first half required the least work. A brand new Chapter 2. That was easy. A few overlays to add in some conflict between the characters, reveal motivations and stuff like that.

Those changes had ripple effects throughout the rest of the manuscript, which led me to writers block (it still happens to me, too).

The biggest hurdle and bluntest comments were about the character of Joe.

The relationship doesn't seem real.
It's too easy.
This remains difficult to believe.

OK. I wrestled here, but to be honest, I think the changes I made really deepen the bond between Michelle and Joe. My mentor hasn't weighed in yet, but we moved on to drafting pitches. I think we're going with draft #15. We moved on to searching for comps and now I'm back to that struggle. Finding adult contemporary fiction on mental illness in a minority family with a romantic subplot that deals with the effects of a cultish religion...not easy.

However, if you tell an agent there's "no book on the market like mine," they don't believe you and write you off as not knowing your genre.

On the flip side, when I think about the lack of suitable comparable titles, it leads me to toy with the idea that This Darkness is Mine is truly a seminal work. After all this turmoil, my ego needs the stroking. And it's plausible. This is not my first go round looking for comp titles and coming up with almost nothing.

What's in This Darkness is Mine?

• an imaginary romance
• a psychotic break on a plane
• a friendship-turned-romance that blows up and falls apart
• dysfunctional family dynamics
• contrast of bipolar managed well against not managed at all
• grief, loss, resilience, tenacity, denial, acceptance, and healing

It's a helluva story


Make someone else's day magical!
Mackenzie

On Writing and Competing

The last few weeks have been a blur. I went on a six-day vacation (whew!), competed in a couple contests for writers, and came away with one win so far.

Pitchwars is a competition intended to pair writers with mentors to work one on one to get a manuscript as close to market-ready for pitching to literary agents and/or publishers in February in Pitch Madness (known agonizingly/affectionately as PitMad on Twitter).

DVPit is another competition on Twitter, but it's for "Diverse Voices" manuscripts. That happened on October 29th.

This is how my timeline unfolded:

• April 2007 announce that I'm a writer
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• September 2017 realize I have a story to write and freeze. Finally get a coach to motivate me through it and sit down to write it (yeah a 10 year gap from declaration to action)
• 
  
• October 2017 begin practice of watching motivational videos every single morning on YouTube
• 
  
• October 2018 interview a spiritual healer who uses Mandalas as part of her method of healing. Join a writers group at the library.
• 
  
• January 2019 get interview published in Conscious Life Journal 💪
• 
  
• April 2019 lose heart while editing for the dozenth time, and nearly quit. 😓Tap my Twitter friends for reinforcement, write something else for awhile
• 
  
• May 2019 invite a shortlist of trusted people with various backgrounds to beta read my manuscript during July and August
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• June 2019 finish round of edits, print and bind copies of manuscript, ship them to beta readers and pass out. Write daily vss365a for entries to be considered for inclusion in the VSS365 Anthology
• 
  
• July-August 2019 kill myself at work. Zero writing, except for daily vss365.
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• September 2019 receive back beta readers' feedback and read through their notes. Decide which comments are actionable and work them into the story. Find out about Pitchwars and enter competition. Get acceptance into the VSS365 Anthology and lose my mind! 😲😁
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• October 2019 answer potential mentor's questions. Find out about DVPit and enter competition. Get a LIKE from a literary agent and scramble to format my comparable titles section, and submit my query package the following day. Start writing super short stories (decide they're not half bad and fun to write). 
• 
  
• November 2019 keep writing short stories, submit one to a university literary journal for consideration. Save one as a marketing piece. Working on one to submit to a reputable competition with a cash prize. Figure out what to do with another. Received notification that a mentor accepted me as her mentee from Pitchwars (friend fills me in that this is a really big deal because hundreds applied and each mentor only selects ONE) 😲😍😎

Not everyone should take twelve years to go from declaring they want to pursue their innermost dreams until they take concrete action.

I recommend starting IMMEDIATELY, but that's only an option. Making the decision to take my dream seriously because God knows, not many did, made all the difference. I spent too much of my life getting shot down before I even tried, so I just decided to save people the trouble and shot myself down.

Years of therapy sunk in. I don't shoot myself down anymore. If I fly, I fly. If I fall, I fall. But I won't stifle my soul by not even trying or by quitting. I'm taking my soul's joy seriously and investing whatever time I want to in making it healthy, happy, and strong.

Make someone else's day magical!

Mackenzie