Normally at this time of year I would be stalking ninjas, but due to the timing of Pitch Wars and WriteOnCon, I didn’t participate as much in the latter this year. I have become an entirely different kind of stalker–a hashtag stalker. Specifically, this one:

#PitchWars

Now, it’s a little overwhelming to watch the whole hashtag. I discovered a handy trick, though. I usually follow Twitter in Tweetdeck on my desktop, but by accident I noticed I could narrow a search on my phone by “People I follow.” And I thought, I wonder if I can do that in the web interface, too? It turns out you can. So I’ve been keeping a tab open in my browser with a search for the hashtag and just the people I follow, which of course includes the mentors I submitted to, along with the organizers and my writing friends. Honestly, watching the full hashtag is just too overwhelming.

But really, this stalking thing can drive you crazy. It’s as bad as stalking agents. I’ve been chatting with some of my writing friends behind the scenes, and here are some of the things we’ve been thinking. Maybe you’ve been thinking these things, too?

“Why isn’t Mentor A tweeting AT ALL? This complete silence is driving me insane!”

“Hints? There are four chosen manuscripts with the word ‘The’ in the title? That’s not mine. Ok, that takes up 4 of the 75 spots, leaving 71. And lots of titles with alliteration. Not mine either. A title longer than 4 words. Also not mine. If at least 3 of those are YA … oh, forget it, I’m not going to try and figure out the math.”

Or:

“My title has ‘The’ in it! And alliteration! And it’s longer than 4 words! I’m in!” 🙂

“Oooh, a chat!” *views chat while eating lunch* “Hmm. Mentor B set some aside because she likes them but doesn’t know how to help them. Will she tell me if I’m one of those? Ugh. What if I picked the totally wrong mentor and they don’t think they can help at all? Oh! How cool would it be to have mentors fighting over my manuscript? Do they have virtual light sabers? What a roller-coaster!” *closes chat*

“Mentor C just tweeted that he’s requested from some people but doesn’t need to see more from others to make a decision. Is he TRYING to torture me?” I actually heard one mentor say she was! Evil mentor! 🙂

“Is there a way to hack into this behind-the-scenes place where the mentors talk? Because I really want to know what entries they’re fighting over and what’s already been picked! Not just mine but writer friend A and writer friend B and …”

“Mentor D says, ‘I love this sample but I’m not sure I can help it. It’s probably ready to query.’ Is that me? If she didn’t read the whole thing, how does she know it’s ready?” Although, still awesome that she loves the first chapter that much.

On the other hand:

“Mentor A says, ‘I rejected this manuscript because I can’t find anything to critique. It’s ready to query.’ Forget Pitch Wars. I’m not waiting until November to send this to agents!” Ha! Kudos to that writer!

“Mentor B made all of his requests and I didn’t get one. Bummer.” Let me just say that if this happened to you, shake it off! (Hey, is that a new song or something?) Everyone says this, but it is so true: taste is sooo subjective. No matter how careful you were selecting your mentors, unless you’re, say, Suzanne Collins, you probably wouldn’t appeal to all of them. Or look on the bright side: maybe they think you are Suzanne Collins and you don’t need a mentor!

“Mentor C just tweeted that she’s loving all the entries in [genre X]. Argh! Mine’s [genre Y]! She’s not going to pick me!”

“Mentor D said a ton of people are mislabeling their submissions. Did I get mine wrong? Am I completely off-base with this manuscript?”

“Mentor A is completely in love with this manuscript. Is it mine???”

“Mentor B said this first page made her laugh out loud. My CP put an LOL note on my first page. Maybe it’s mine!”

“Mentor C is only tweeting about his favorite candy. Who cares about candy? I need to know what he’s reading!”

And the ultimate question:

“Mentor D has made her pick! Is it me?”

Well, I guess we’ll find out next week.

Others have said it, but let me repeat it. Agent-judged contests are a great opportunity, and this one in particular has an extra mentoring layer that gives it even more weight, but don’t be discouraged if you aren’t selected. There are a lot of factors that go into being chosen. And some of them might even be positive–like maybe the mentors think you don’t need that mentoring layer. I used it as an example above because I’ve seen mentors tweeting it. I’m hopeful that if that is the reason the mentors will let applicants know. And if it’s another reason–like you need more help than they can give you in the time period necessary–don’t be discouraged by that either. The journey to publication is a long one. I’ve certainly learned that, and I’m not giving up.

Good luck, everyone! I hope the wait over the weekend isn’t too unbearable. I’ll still be hashtag stalking, but I also have a lot going on, so it won’t be all-consuming. Happy Labor Day to those celebrating on Monday!