That thing I've Been Promising #TeamDannie Alumni

Hi Kids!!

Well, it's finally summer break and I have two seconds to breathe. Writing life and life life have been complete chaos so I want to start by taking a minute to thank those of you who have had to put up with my growing pains over the past couple months. And also to those of you who put up with me in general. I make no apologies for who I am--snarky, opinionated to a fault, and often lacking a filter. I know that can be a lot to handle sometimes, especially when I'm wearing my emotions on my timeline and whatnot.

So thanks. For realz.

And now to the good stuff!

If you've been around since PitchWars 2013 you know I had promised I'd do something more for the people who queried me. And I've had a vague idea of what that is since then, but honest to blog less than zero time to implement it. And I'm not much better off at the moment, but we're going to ease into this anyway, now that it's summer and I've got more than ten minutes to devote to Twitter a week.

During the weeks between selecting our PitchWars mentees/alternates and the agent round, you probably heard Sonia, Alexandra, Christy and I babbling about our 'clubhouse' meetings. Once a week, we'd get together in a private G+ hangout and get shit done: brainstorming loglines, working out plot snags, swapping beta reads, venting about writerly frustration.

It's something we've continued to do in the six months that have followed PitchWars on a fairly regular basis and even though I've been at this for a while, it has been an amazing resource for me. We get together about once a month and talk shop, provide support, and work out our writerly shit.

Basically it's a support group for writers. Because writing is hard, y'all. And as our careers grow, we're expanding what we do with the clubhouse.

That's where you guys come in.

We're opening it up to 10 additional #Team Dannie members--the first 10 who comment here with their Twitter accounts so I can DM you the info.

What you can expect in the clubhouse:

• A confidential, emotionally safe place to get support during tough writer times
• Some killer brains to bounce ideas off of.
• Help spreading the word about projects, publications, and the good stuff that needs spreading in our writing lives. 
• An external pressure to hold you accountable to caretake your writing life!
• Random discussions of snacks and an abundance of digital wine.

What we ask for in return:

The commitment of participating in our monthly meetings. The clubhouse only works because we're committed to it and to each other. So if you sign on, please only do so if you intend to participate regularly.  The meetings are always on Monday nights after kiddos go to bed. We figure out the date/time as a group to keep it as convenient as we can for everyone.

How it works:

Our next meeting is on Monday, June 23rd at 9pm EST. (A week from tonight.)
I will DM you the details once we've added you to the approved member list (which I'll also DM you about)
Plan to come and chat, bounce ideas, listen and work!
Meetings usually last about an hour but people check in and check out as they can.

Who's eligible:

Anyone I've selected for my "team" in a blog contest. This includes #AgentTreat #PitchWars (including all 60ish people who queried me for the 2013 contest) #NestPitch #PitchMadness and Team Supernova for this year's #TheWVoice (since I was Kim Chase's co-coach.). Basically if I've hosted your pitch on my blog or picked you for my team in a contest, you're a member of #TeamDannie and are thus eligible.

IMPORTANT NOTE: You MUST have a gmail account to enter the clubhouse. Gmail is free, so if you don't have one it's pretty easy to set up an account.

We will add to our numbers as people show interest, and as it works for the clubhouse. If the club gets too big we may have to figure out a way to stagger membership.

Questions? Hit me up in comments or on Twitter!

The first ten people to post the following as a comment to this post are in!

• Name/Nickname/Pen Name:
• Contest I picked you for:
• Title of your work:
• Your twitter name:

Ready? Aaaand go!!

Nest Pitch Agent Round is On!

The Slush Bilbies have sorted through the entries to help the Nest Bloggers whittle down the best of the bunch. Now the top seventy-two entries have made it through and are waiting for agents to hop on by to make requests.  

Please remember that comments on individual posts are for agents only. If you want to cheer on your favorite, you can do it in the comments of THIS POST ONLY.  

  

To find out more about the Nest Pitch Easter Pitch Hunt go here and the Rules and Conditions here. You can find the full schedule here and the participating agents here.   

Without further ado, here are the fabulous members of #TeamPeeps!

Nest Pitch DM 1: THE TROLL DIARIES (Upper MG/Fantasy)

Nest Pitch DM 2: CAPTAIN (Adult/Historical Fantasy)

Nest Pitch DM 3: LOOK AT OUR TREE (PB/Multicultural)

Nest Pitch DM 4: NEEDLE’S EYE (YA/Urban Fantasy)

Nest Pitch DM 5: THE WINTER KING (NA/Urban Fantasy)

Nest Pitch DM 6: CHEMICALS COLLIDE (YA/Contemporary)

                                                                                                    

Nest Pitch DM 7: THE STARS MAY RISE & FALL (Adult/LGBT-Commercial)

Nest Pitch DM 8: DARK SKY’S ASHES (MG/Urban Fantasy)

You can find the rest of the entries snuggled safely in the other bloggers nests: 

Brooke Powell    

Kimberly P. Chase   

Jeffe Kennedy   

Tina Moss     

Amanda Foody   

Dannie Morin  

Sharon Bayliss   

Stacey Nash
SM Johnston

Good luck to everyone who has made it to here. May your nest be filled with lots of chocolaty requests!

Nest Pitch DM 1: THE TROLL DIARIES

Category/Genre: Upper MG/Fantasy

Word Count: 47,000

Pitch: Thirteen-year-old River’s a misfit troll prince seeking his father’s acceptance. An enemy fairy reveals a dangerous truth: River’s really one of the Fae, making the prince a main ingredient in his mother’s famous bone-bread.

Egg: I would be a green organic vegan tofu egg; just don’t eat me, ‘cause, you know, issues.

Excerpt:

I know what you’re thinking. Trolls; nasty, ugly creatures that live in caves and under bridges. And you’d be right, for the most part.

I come from a long line of proud, ugly bridge trolls. It’s what we do. We guard bridges, take tolls, and occasionally grind bones to make our bread.

I’m kidding.

Well, sort of.

See, I’m not really a normal troll. I guess you could call me the black sheep of the family. Maybe not a sheep though, since my family eats those. I’m pretty sure they don’t want to eat me. I’m a vegetarian, which doesn’t sit well with them at all.

My mother is considered to be the best bone-bread maker in the whole forest of Mystwood, or at least here in the Hob, our home. It’s really the truth. Of course, the last troll who challenged her sort of disappeared. Permanently. I tried to eat bone-bread once. Not by choice, mind you. My brothers Bog and Mud held me down and forced me to eat a whole loaf. It was kind of dry… and crumbly, like you would expect bone-bread to taste, I guess.

I prefer to eat things that didn’t scream in fear when they died. Like berries, and mushrooms, and whatever I can poach from the farmer’s crops at the edge of the forest. I’m not proud of stealing the food, but at least I’m not trying to eat the farmer. One night I took my baby sister, Ivy, with me, and things got a little ugly. She’s three, and big for a troll of her age. Anyway, the farmer’s dogs chased us out of the tomato patch, and, well, my sister was hungry. Let’s just say the farmer has one less dog now.

I won’t make that mistake again.

Nest Pitch DM 2: CAPTAIN

Category/Genre: Adult/Historical Fantasy

Word Count: 108,000

Pitch: Escaping a life planned out for him, the man who would be Hook stows away on a pirate ship and finds forbidden love w/a faery queen.

Egg:  If I were an Easter egg, I’d be something exotic, like when Uncle Argo brought home South American chocolate laced with cinnamon. 

Excerpt:

James Lamport was going to sea. 

As he strode toward the London Docks, he couldn’t help but smile.  He was going to see it.  The world.  All of it. 

All he had to do was ask his Uncle Argo.  The sailor’s ship had just come in, and James would make certain he was on it the next time it went out.  

He drew more than a few second glances as he walked onto the docks, his pressed waistcoat a stark contrast to the working men’s attire around him, but he paid them no mind.  The bustling stevedores, the barrels of pickled herring from the North Sea, the merchants selling tobacco and pearls and shrunken heads – this was what excited him.  He inhaled the tangy scent of filth and fish and his heart quickened. 

“Oi lad – catch!”  

James was struck in the face with a burlap sack that smelled like something dragged up from the bottom of the river.  

The booming voice spoke again: “Come to carry me laundry?” 

He looked up and saw his portly uncle standing a few feet off with his pipe in his mouth, a second pack thrown over his shoulder.  

“Uncle Argo!”  They both dropped their bags and embraced one another.  James felt his uncle’s pipe nick his ear, and his thick beard chaff against his cheek.  His uncle smelled of brine and seaweed covered up by exotic perfumes from the Tropics.  “It’s so good to see you!” 

“Aye, and you too, boy!  Been a long time.  How’d yeh know we’d be here?” 

The twenty-year-old grinned.  “Paid a delivery boy to fetch me when the Saint Angela was coming up the Thames.” 

“Clever lad.”

“Well, Father’s money ought to be used for something.”

Nest Pitch DM 3: LOOK AT OUR TREE

Category/Genre: PB/Multicultural

Word Count: 434

Pitch: A tree survives near the Gobi Desert and becomes part of a family. It gives help, shade, company, home, hope, strength, and a strong sense of family root.

Egg: It would taste sweet like the Sha-Zao fruit it shares.

Excerpt:

This is our tree. My ancestors planted it long ago.

It’s a Sha-Zao fruit tree.  We call it Wu-Wei, which means fearless.

Trees are very rare in my village near the Gobi Desert.

People passing by my house often stop to look at Wu-Wei.

I hug our tree, climb it, and swing from it.

My grandma, Nainai, hangs laundry on it.

Mama and my big sisters sew in the shade.

Baba and villagers chat under it in the moon light.

When I cry, Nainai says, “Look at our tree! It never sheds a tear.”

When I tumble, Mama says, “Look at our tree! It doesn’t bend.”

Nest Pitch DM 4: NEEDLE’S EYE

Category/Genre: YA/Urban Fantasy

Word Count: 69,000

Pitch: When a serial killer terrorizes St. Petersburg, 17-year-old Akira discovers strange links to a well-known Russian fairytale. Now she must stop an immortal hell-bent on adding her soul to his collection before he kills again.

Egg: I would be a Faberge egg made of blood-red enamel. I don’t really do sweets.

Excerpt:

When I was very small, my grandfather told me stories of Koschei the Deathless.

He was trying to frighten me. They were the kinds of tales villagers told children to keep them from wandering alone into the woods, the Russian equivalent of Little Red Riding Hood.  But just as there was nothing scary about a wolf wearing a bonnet and bifocals, there was nothing remotely frightening about my grandfather, so I paid little attention to his stories.

“Solavushka,” he began (he had called me “little nightingale” since I was an infant, when I kept everyone up all night with my “singing”), “the thing you must know about Koschei the Deathless is that he will not appear as a wicked old man with a long white beard, the way the storybooks say. He will not take you to his castle to make you his wife.”

I nodded as I examined my grandfather’s long, wiry eyebrow hairs, wondering why my grandmother didn’t trim them.

“Akira, are you listening?”

“Yes, Dedushka. I will make sure to stay away from Koschei.”

“You are not listening, child,” my grandfather grumbled, standing abruptly so I tumbled onto the floor. “How many times do I have to tell you?” He shook his head as he stormed off into the kitchen for some of my grandmother’s walnut oreshki. 

“I met him when I was a young man,” he told me once, not long before he died. “He had taken the form of a small girl, just a year or two younger than you are now.” 

“If he looked like a little girl, how did you know it was Koschei?” I asked.

“Because I saw his teeth. Rows and rows, needle sharp, like a shark. And he made a horrible noise, like an insect screaming. It was loud enough to raise the dead.”

Nest Pitch DM 5: THE WINTER KING

Nest Pitch DM 5: WINTER KING

Category/Genre: NA/Urban Fantasy

Word Count: 100,000

Pitch: Nineteen-year-old Lydia was told the monsters from her Celtic nightmares were part of her Asperger's diagnosis.  When she discovers the truth she must fight for her life and still prove she is capable of living independently.

Egg: Chocolate with mint chocolate inside, because she’s still trying to figure out who she is.

Excerpt:

Frozen air slapped against my bare face as I hurried out of the gym.  I should have been warm after three hours of Kendo but I was cold and trembling as hot sweat glued my t-shirt to my skin.  Ten years of therapy and the nightmares were getting worse.  Tonight I almost killed a boy. 

An unfamiliar instinct had slid its cold hands into my mind, images of men with shining eyes and bloodstained armor blended with my sparring opponent until I couldn’t tell reality from dream.  He was the enemy, coming at me with a real killing sword and death in his eyes and I knew how to kill him with a flick of my wooden sword to the side of his skull.  For a horrible moment I forgot where I was.  Who I was.

I wasn’t a killer.  I saved earthworms from drowning when it rained and cried over soup commercials.  I was just a girl with Aspergers trying to survive college and terrified of small talk.

I walked fast down Monroe Street, avoiding gold and orange leaves slowly melting on the sidewalks.  A sharp burst of icy rain glittered against the street lights and October’s cold made the world a dimly lit frozen candy-cane land from hell.  Rusting street lamps gave off a dull sulfur glow and slick black ice shimmered on the empty pavement.  A gust of wind swept up my coat, setting fire to my joints as sweat from Kendo tried to freeze my t-shirt to my skin.  

I wanted to be safe but there was no way to hide from a monster in my own mind.  However for at least a few hours, I could rest.  So I went to Callahan’s Place, my favorite coffee shop and refuge from insanity.   I was always there between ten and one in the morning and I was not going to let fear for my sanity scare me out of my routine.

Nest Pitch DM 6: CHEMICALS COLLIDE

Category/Genre: YA/Contemporary

Word Count: 75,000

Pitch: Sixteen-year-old Sara keeps her home and life immaculate for her spiraling OCD mother, without asking for help. But between failing grades and her gritty Speedway boyfriend, the facade will fall apart if her control slips.

Egg: Sara would be a plain dairy milk Easter Egg because she appreciates the simple things in life.

Excerpt:

Getting ready was exhausting. 

An acidic stench filled the air and I struggled not to gag as I scoured the bottom of the shower. My wet hair dangled in the suds as I leaned forward as far as possible without actually entering the stall. The bathroom was already immaculate but if I left without removing the watermarks, my mother would panic and spend the rest of the afternoon doing a job I could do in five minutes.

My phone buzzed to life on the counter and I reached out to grab it. “Hello?”

“You’re late, Sara.”

I closed my eyes and cursed under my breath. “The ice-cream store… I’m sorry Tahina, I completely forgot.”

“I can see that. So lay it on me, what’s your excuse?”  

“Um…” I glanced around the bathroom. How could I even begin to explain that I was wrapped in a towel, up to my elbows in suds, and not even close to being ready?

“Actually,” Tahina interrupted. “I don’t even want to know. You can make it up to me by coming to the Speedway tonight.”

My mouth dropped. “What? No. Tahina, I hate the Speedway.”

“You’ve never even been,” she reminded me.

“I know, but…” All that dirt, all that dust, my mother would have a fit.

“But nothing,” Tahina interrupted. “I’ll pick you up in fifteen minutes, and you better be ready; you’ve blown me off twice this week.”

“But–”

I didn’t get the chance to complain because a dial tone was already beeping in my ear. I rubbed my nose with the crook of my arm; I’d deal with the fallout of attending the Speedway later, right now I needed to get out of this bathroom before the smell of disinfectant killed me. I washed down the shower with cold water and dried the entire area with a towel before checking the tiles for stray auburn hairs.

Nest Pitch DM 8: DARK SKY’S ASHES

Category/Genre: MG/Urban Fantasy

Word Count: 64,000

Pitch: When twelve-year-old Conley frees a mind-reading dragon with a killer agenda, he must get his own dragons in the sky before Kansas City goes up in flames. So long, summer break. 

Egg: Chocolate and prickly pear, ‘cause I’m a thoughtful guy but don’t push me.

Excerpt:

Introduction

The brick house was the tallest house on the street and the brick house knew it. The brick house had an extra twenty feet on the competition and that was without the rooftop palisade and launch pad that had been torn down and smashed to rubble at midnight in the 1950s. 

The brick house was made entirely of stone. The lintels were hand-hewn limestone. The floors were poured concrete reinforced with steel, except where they housed escape tunnels and air shafts. A century-long line of home inspectors had said, “Completely safe and stable,” and each time, the brick house had smiled with quiet irony. The brick house was immovable and ingenious and fireproof, but the best word to describe it in English was “dangerous." 

The brick house was looking out, keeping its eyes open, biding its time. It expected a lot and usually got it. It knew what it wanted. The brick house had never settled, would never settle for anything. The brick house was strong and good-looking and the brick house was kind of a jerk.

But that didn’t change the fact that the brick house knew its stuff. That didn’t change the things that the brick house had seen and the lives it had helped begin and end and the dark corners it would show the right tenants and the questionable plans it had for their future.

Chapter One: The Night Visitor

Conley wondered why the window was open. He’d been staring at the ceiling for about half the night, thinking about summer break. He was deciding whether a dent in the plaster resembled a camel or just an amoeba when he noticed the draft. The window had definitely been shut when his dad had hugged him good night, the old air conditioner humming and rattling outside.

The #NestPitch Submission Window is Now Open (April 1-2, 2014)!

The submission window for NestPitch is NOW OPEN!

It will remain open for 24 hours, from noon on 1st April to 11.59am 2nd April (USA EST). That’s 24 hours from this post going live, folks.

There’s no cut off number for entries. Everyone who submits during the window will make it into the contest. All entries will receive an email receipt. If you don’t, check with Nik Vukoja on Twitter @nestpitch and/or @nik_vukoja

Send your entries to nestpitch @ outlook .com (no spaces)

For formatting instructions and rules check this post out (although an excerpt is contained below).

NestPitch is a contest where participants email their 35-word pitches together with the first 300 words of their finished manuscript (or 100 words for picture books).

The selected pitches will be featured on these blogs (show them all some follow love – you know, if you want to):

Brooke Powell | Kimberly P. Chase | Jeffe Kennedy | Tina Moss | Amanda Foody | Dannie Morin | Sharon M Johnston | Sharon Bayliss | Stacey Nash

Then agents, identities hidden, will leave a request for pages, partials or fulls of the featured pitches.

Entries must be embedded within email (no attachments) with following:

Name: YOUR NAME

Title: TITLE OF MANUSCRIPT

Genre: Category/Genre of Manuscript (i.e. NA Romance)

Word Count: (round to the nearest 1000)

PITCH: 35-word (maximum) logline

Answer to this question in one sentence of no more than 15 words: If my Main Character were an Easter Egg, what flavour would he or she be and why?

First 300-words of your manuscript. If the 300th word falls in the middle of a sentence, go to the end of the sentence. For picture book submissions please only submit 100-words. If the 100th word falls in the middle of a sentence, go to the end of the sentence.

Please ensure:
(i) your manuscript has not been featured in another Pitch Competition in the past 12 months – that’s ANY pitch competition (not twitter pitches), from the period April 1st 2013 to 31st March 2014

(ii) your manuscript IS NOT published. This INCLUDES self-published.

Our Slush Bilbies and Nest Bloggers will read through the pitches and pick the top 72 pitches for the agent round: April 17th – 18th

We’ll try to get a good mix of various genres, but the writing comes first. If the submissions aren’t ready, it’s in your best interests that we pass. The last thing anyone wants is your manuscript to be old and tired from “doing the rounds” before it’s ready.

Nest Pitch: Deets and a "Guess the Agent" Giveaway!

How this works:

Each of the agents has taken on a Secret Agent Bunny Mask and your job is to identify who is wearing which Mask. Find the Agent List here. 

There’s an Amazon Voucher in it for the first correct answer. More info on that here.  

For those who haven’t been watching/listening carefully, this is how #nestpitch will work.  On April 1^st, you will send us your pitch + 300.  All the rules and conditions are HERE!

Then our Awesome Super-Cala-Fragile-Istic team of Slush Bilbies will pick the top 100-odd.  

From there our Scrum-didle-iumptious Team of Bloggers will each pick their favourite pitches to post on their blogs. 

Once the pitches are posted, the Secret Agent Bunnies will hop from nest to nest and leave a chocolate treat. 

At the end of the Easter Egg Treats day… you will be sent a second email with a list of agents who made a request.  If any agents have given specific email addresses, this will be added to your email. If not, please email to the Agency but remember to follow the guidelines with regard to what to write in the Subject Line.

And; while all this is happening, we will announce the winners of:

(i) The winner (s) of the Unmask the Agent (open to all not just those participating in #nestpitch)

(ii) The winner (s) of the most requests

(iii) The winner (s) of the most FULLS requested

All of the above winners will receive an AMAZON Gift Card 

Rhiann Wynn-Nolet and Nik are running a 35-word pitch clinic here starting this weekend.

 Now to the Bunny Masks, and in no particular order!!!

(1) COCKTAIL BUNNY

As well as Adult fiction, this Cocktail Bunny wants YAthat’s creative and fresh (open to all genres) and has strong characters that are flawed yet unique. Cocktail Bunnies like their Literary/Commercial fiction with a multi-cultural bend, and will curl up with their big curly-furred dog to read smart, intelligent Mysteries and Thrillers and historical fiction. Cocktail Bunnies have a low threshold for overdone.

(2) BOOKWORM BUNNY

Bookworm Bunny is looking for Psychological Suspense with a twist (think THE OTHERS), dark, creepy, hair-raising YA & NA, clever mysteries with a keen sense of place, humorous MG series, and contemporary Romances and Women’s Fiction of all descriptions.

(3) GIANT BUNNY

This Cocktail Bunny really likes animals, Supernatural (the TV show), and Loki from the Avengers.  Giant Bunny is extremely chatty on-line and very open about their style of agenting.  Giant Bunny also recently got a serious hair cut; that’s a big clue!  When not adopting new fury friends, Giant Bunny likes to read the gamut – Picture Books, MG, YA, Adult, Romance even PB’s for adults – hehehe

(4) LAPTOP BUNNY

This Laptop Bunny wants innovative MG and YA projects with a pull towards more historical settings although a modern, emotional story would be welcome.  Also loves contemporary Romance and Women’s Fiction and anything that really manages to surprise me.

(5) MAD SCIENTIST BUNNY

Mad Scientist Bunnies would naturally want non-fiction, but can you believe it, this Mad Scientist is also looking for YA, MG, Adult Mysteries/Thrillers and literary fiction too – Even a Mad Scientist’s enjoy a good bit of fiction – now, can you guess who this Mad Scientist is?

(6) SOCCER BUNNY

Soccer Bunnies Like romance?  Who Knew? Well,this Soccer Bunny does likeRomance, especially contemporary and historical (has a soft spot for Regency), YA sci-fi/fantasy, contemporary, historical–particularly partial to YA with, you guessed it, romance!

(7) JUGGLER BUNNY 

As the name suggests, this Juggler Bunny has a lot going on, balls in the air anyone?  But they still have time for great writing and new Clients, as long as they are MG and YA;open to any genre within those age groups, but prefers speculative fiction.

No idea who Juggler Bunny is?  Here’s a clue, could you spell this Agent’s name without looking?

(8) NINJA BUNNY

Haaa-Yah! Ninja Bunny wish list: My main big wishes are brilliant storytelling and inspiring or heart-breaking characters; I want to feel like I’m living, not reading, the story. Also anything that brings me to tears either through love, fear or sadness would be wonderful – Sounds like tis Ninja likes a good cry after beating up the bad-guys!

(9) ARTIST BUNNY

This Artist Bunny is super hungry for MG/ YA/ AdultRomance, Fantasy and wants to curl up on the sofa with a great Mystery.  And this Agent Bunny knows the business from both sides of the process;…and that’s a big clue :) 

Oh, and don’t panic if you don’t see your genre or category, these are TOP agents who work for AWESOME agencies, eight agencies to be accurate, trust me, their colleges are watching, and waiting, and intending to leave treats under these Bunny Masks.

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE!

I can’t tell you who they are; but we do have 4 confirmed Magic Bunyips lurking…

• Purple Bunyip
• Yellow Bunyip
• Green Bunyip
• Blue Bunyip 

This means, if a Bunyip sees a *NEST* they simply MUST HAVE, they’ll whisper a special code word to me and I’ll let them leave their own unique treat.

Phew! this has been a BIG post.

You know what to do right?

Get your 35-word pitch sharpened by joining us at the Post-it-Forward clinic

Polish your Manuscript until it sparkles with fairy dust.

Submit on the 1st of April

& Play along with Unmasking the Agents!

Last but by far least; here is a quick list of the AMAZING TEAM we have for #nestpitch 

Slush Bilbies:

Emily Mead  

Susan Nystoriak 

Cassandra Page 

Louise (Lou) Gornall 

Heather Bryant 

Katy Upperman 

Stacey Trombley  

Nest Bloggers: 

Brooke Powell 

Kimberly P. Chase

Jeffe Kennedy

Tina Moss 

Amanda Foody

Dannie Morin (That's me.)

Sharon M Johnston

Sharon Bayliss

Stacey Nash