PitchWars results are out and I didn’t make it through.
At first, I was really crushed – I was really hoping my MS would get picked up by a mentor, really crossing my fingers at this wonderful opportunity. And when I found out I didn’t make it, my stomach churned and all I wanted to do was sit down and cry. Because in a way, yeah, I failed.
But then I really thought about it, and noticed there was no real failure here. The thing is, PitchWars is a competition. Only one person can get picked by a mentor, out of hundreds of MS that had been sent. In a way, you have to get chosen among all the other people that went for it. And in the industry, it’s not exactly like that. An agent will not pick you over another person. There’s no competition but against yourself. To make yourself better, to improve your writing.
Of course, being in PitchWars would be a great honor and it’d an awesome feedback to receive and to work with. But ultimately, in my path to publishing, it wouldn’t change anything. Accelerate the process? Sure, it might. I might have gotten an agent on the agent round, but I also might have not. All those possibilities, of course, are now over, but in the overall path, nothing has changed. I still plan on querying my entered MS by the end of the year and going through yet another round of revisions. I just won’t have a mentor to help me along the way.
What I do have, however, are my CPs and friends, and all the people who have helped me along this path and have seen the MS and cheered me on. I cannot state how important all the feedback I have received is to me, and how glad I am that I have such awesome CPs and friends to work with! And not to mention, soon enough all the mentors I’ve submitted to will be giving me feedback – and I can’t wait to hear what they have to say. Even in failing, PitchWars will have helped. I’ll get feedback I need and find out what has happened, if it was a stumble or simply not my mentor’s style of book. All these things happen. Not everyone will like your book, sometimes other people need the chance to improve their MS more than you. Sometimes your MS can’t be improved in two months. Who knows, right?
But it wasn’t really a failure, after all. No rejection ever is – it’s only a matter of persisting and moving forward with all your projects. I’m still super excited to follow up the road to publishing!
And on a happier note (meaning, SUPER HAPPY!!!!!) my CP and friend Joan got her manuscript, Hesperia, picked up by her PitchWars mentors. I’m so happy to see this MS moving forward because I’ve read it and I love it to death! It’s so exciting for me to see Joan conquering the world in this, and I’m so glad I have her for a CP. She’s definetly someone you want to watch out for in the future!