Pitch Wars, PW Teasers and Back to School

Back to Reality...

All summer I got up at the crack of dawn, walked the dogs, drank the coffee and more importantly...

I wrote the words. And wrote them, and wrote them and wrote them and wrote them. Then I read them. Then I wrote them some more. And then, my pinky did DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE. I wrote about 70,000 words this summer. 

And so, when I finished a draft, I was all like, I wrote a book this summer!

The other thing I did this summer was decide to learn how to do Twitter. 

Which was fun. And also grueling. But ultimately led me to PitchWars. So I put my big girl pants on, got three people to critique it, I have no idea how, and wrote two more drafts and then hit SUBMIT. And then, this - 

I found out about PW Teasers and went down that rabbit hole for the first 24 hours the window was open. I became convinced that I would have heard by now. Etc. And whatever.

But, good news - The Real World Awaits!

Not that writing isn't the real world. It's very real.

I have two other real worlds as well. One has been neglected and one was on hiatus and is about to kick back up into high gear.

Real World Number One - MOM. I have neglected and turned a blind eye to many different things in the last few weeks. I wrote a novel this summer but nothing makes me feel more accomplished than having all the children's laundry washed and put away. I love seeing the clean shirts all hanging in a row. You don't have to ask anyone if you washed the shirts properly. No one has to decide if the clean shirts are good enough to be published.

I'm happiest when there washer and dryer are both running.

Real World Number Two - VICE PRINCIPAL

It's hard to describe what I do at my job. What I do not do is stop. It's a great, busy job and I get to love a lot of kids and work with great people. Those little people don't care how many books I've written either.

"Mrs. Allison, is your PitchWars mentor tweeting out teasers or no?" Is something you will never hear.

And then there's these two guys. They need a walk.

I'm in the Pitch Wars vortex but lucky for me, two other vortexes are waiting to pull me out, and I am jumping into both of them.

Pitch Wars #BoostMyBio

Well, here we go. 

Two golden retrievers are trying to climb on top of me, and the stupid robot vacuum is beeping because it's stuck under the fridge door. There are piles of clean and dirty laundry. There are dishes in the sink. I have work emails to write but instead...

Time to Boost my Bio.

Call me what you like but you can't say I'm not a try-hard. This is my first blog post. I probably need a blog anyway. Even Kanye had a first post.

That's me with my sister Jenny. A few years ago. I'm the tall, good-looking one. 

Slightly more recent - this is our family. 

By day I am a vice-principal in an elementary school, which means I mostly put band-aids on really small children and give bigger children heck for throwing snowballs. 

I self-published a book this year called Lattes and Love. It was my first novel and I was just thrilled to have finished it. I didn't know that I would be compelled to write another one immediately. So much for crossing it off the bucket list. This summer I have written and polished a new manuscript, Cautiously Optimistic Emily. I was all set to let the manuscript sit and age while I had a break and then went back to school.

Except that five minutes after I decided that I learned about PitchWars. So here we are.

This is the exact view that I had when I wrote most of the first draft of this book. I didn't take it. Some random person posted it to google reviews. I spent so many mornings there drinking free refills of my bold dark roast with room that the barista said to me one day, "You must not like your kids very much." Charming. Thanks. 

A few more or less interesting facts (can you tell I have no idea what I am doing?)

• I don't like superfluous exclamation points It's like devaluing currency, using them all the time.
• I love cupcakes a lot. But not cupcakes from the grocery store.
• I'm addicted to Coronation Street. Especially Jim MacDonald.
• I have kept six hydrangea bushes alive all summer, although they do need to be weeded.
• My house smells like dog.
• My daughter can give you the next line of any line you throw her from The Office with alarming accuracy.

If I am chosen as a mentee, you will find that I am very bossable. This is why I get along so well with my sister, above. She is bossy and I am the bossee. I'm very stubborn and I have learned to use this power for good by doing things like figuring out how to write a blog when I should be folding laundry. My husband is the most wonderful man in the world and he and my children are one hundred per cent behind me. 

I'm just superexcited. I'm superexcited most of the time in general but I'm extra superexcited about this.

And I'm very Disney-obsessed. Princesses, Princes, Walt working his butt off selling papers to get enough money to draw pictures. It's all there.

Soooo...