Pitch Madness and GUTGAA

The nerves in my lower gut are doing their best impression of a bucket of worms slithering around and crawling all over one another. Little sick feelings sit on my shoulders like tiny gargoyles with beady eyes and fangs, laughing at me. At the same time my chest is tight with excitement and swollen with pride, both are elbowing my heart and kicking my lungs trying to get out. These emotions war within me for prominence.

Why?

The nerves are there for two reasons. Pitch Madness and GUTGAA. *hands quiver*

Twitter is buzzing with these two online events like a swarm of Tracker Jackers, so fascinating, but with the potential for a nasty sting. Okay, that analogy may be a teensy bit over the top. This is my first year to join either event and I'm a wreck!

The excitement and pride are because I've finished editing my novel. Down from a lard ass word count of 135k to a sleek 94k. I think it may actually be easier to lose ten pounds than to lose 10k words - hell, I should be an anorexic super model at this point, I've lost 40k words... but not a single pound, dammit. Having finished my MS, I'm ready to really get serious about querying and finding an agent. In comes GUTGAA (Gearing Up To Get An Agent) and Pitch Madness. Perfect frickin' timin'!

GUTGAA is being spearheaded by Deana Barnhart, who I don't know personally, but have decided I'd like to get to know, we could be best friends some day (don't scoff, it could happen). A whole month's worth of awesomeness. You should check it out (click here) to get help polishing your pitch or possibly pitch to real live agents (as opposed to blow up dolls imaginary). There's Blogfest, Pitch Contests, and more . Prizes will be awarded weekly (that's reason enough for me to join the fun). Go here to see the entire schedule. Follow the fun on Twitter with #GUTGAA.

Pitch Madness is a little more confusing to me *hangs head in shame* but looks like its worth the time to check out. Brenda Drake's blog is where I found most of the information. I think there's only one more submission window coming up on Sept. 4th, so hurry. Pitch Madness is a contest across several blogs with elimination rounds and, again, real live agents. The worst part about this contest is having to create a pitch using only 35 words (You GOT to be shittin' kiddin' me!). But hey, it's their contest, they can do what they want, right? And I'm thankful they are. On Twitter you can check out the fun using #PitMad or #PitchMadness (I found both options, so I'm not absolutely sure which is the best to use, sorry.)

Good luck to everyone entering the fun and "may the odds be ever in your favor!" (that last part belongs to Suzanne Collins, but I LOVE that I found a legit place to use it *maniacal laughing*)

Let me know if you're jumpin' in by adding comments below. I'd love to hear from you. No. Really, it'd make my day.