This week I am obsessed with #PitchWars. My first completed novel, IX: Awakening, has languished in Rejectistan for over a year. I took some writing courses to help polish my writing and mashed up two short pieces into The Revolt on Mars, which ended up being 71,000 words. Revolt is the piece I am readying to submit to #PitchWars in the search for a mentor who can help me make my writing more likely to be published. Everything is pretty much ready to submit next week, after which I will have a month to wait before I find out if I have attracted a mentor. This process is higher probability than querying an agent, but it’s still very low probability of success. When I was a Navy helicopter pilot a lot of my fellow Naval Aviators wanted to fly for the airlines. When I left active duty, one airline advertised for six pilots and got over 8,000 applications. There is no way this can be weeded down to 6 without a huge helping of arbitrariness and personal connection. Same with writing. So the probable #PitchWars odds of about 100:1 against isn’t as bad as it might be.

While I wait I am working on a third novel and trying to get several finished short stories published. I just joined critters.org as a way of getting more feedback on my writing. I plan to critique some short stories and submit a few of my own for critique. It will keep me focused on writing and make the time go faster.

Fingers crossed!