OR victory from the jaws of defeat!!!!!!!!!!!

I was kind of bummed last night that I lost pitchapalooza. But, when I was walking home, in a way, I felt like something good was going to happen. I talked to Brassy last night and he cheered me up, but still I felt like there was something unfinished, or that something was going to happen.

This morning I checked my email, and had one from someone in my writer's group that I haven't really met. He was at the pitch last night, he's a published author, and an award winning screen writer splitting his time between here and NYC (which is why I haven't met him). The email said:

Hi, Franki,
After the event, I bought a book and got it signed.  I put in a
nice word for you with David (the pitchapalooza panel guy).  He wants to follow up
with you and was really impressed with your pitch, Franki.  He
wanted me to make sure you contact him.  His email is [deleted].

Good luck!  Awesome job tonight.

I was shocked, surprised, excited, and stunned that this person who's never met me, or read anything I've written, would go out of his way to help me. I sent a profusely thankful email back to him, offered to buy him a drink, and then got on the stick and sent an email, which was probably crappy, to David. Now I guess I'll wait and see what happens.

In the mean time, I got a response back to my thankful email:

Your story is CAPTIVATING!  I have not seen your writing, but if it is anything like the way you tell it verbally, I believe you will inspire many people.  Plus, you're a really nice person and I want you to succeed.

See you soon.

 

Stay tuned...

I lost

Well, tonight was a weird experience...

When I got to the pitchapalooza 64 people had shown up to pitch. I was like uh oh. They had us put our names in a basket to be randomly selected to pitch. They said they would take 30 people. I didn't get called. Then they said they only had time for one more pitch (19 had been done) because Tattered Cover was closing early. I thought as hard as I could for them to pull my name as the last pitch.

Amazingly, they did.

From the first 5 seconds of my pitch there was an audible gasp from the panel. Then they laughed at the cadaver knee part. When I finished they even applauded me (they didn't applaud anyone else). The main guy said my pitch was perfect and that he loved it. A guy who is a book rep said he thought my book would sell really well and that if the media got their hands on me they would eat me up (his exact words). They all said there wasn't a single thing about my pitch that they would change (unlike every one else that had pitched). I told them I had gotten some rejections on my book and the book seller said "that's because they aren't reading your pitch, but that's going to change - don't see those as rejections at all".

The one woman on the panel asked if my stories were true. I said I had the pictures and witnesses to prove it which made everyone in the audience laugh (maybe because of the way I said it, I don't know).

Then the woman and the book seller went out of the room to pick the winner. I put my hat on and got my jacket ready. Everyone was like "what are you doing? you had to have won!" When the woman and book seller walked back in the room a bunch of people from the writer's group started saying "You know you won".

Which was embarrassing because I didn't win. The woman who won wrote a memoir about making a major change in her life from being a house wife to a feminist. Her pitch was so boring compared to some of the others that I didn't even remember what it was about (someone pitched a kid's book about the Cat Intelligence Agency, where cats solve crimes by manipulating humans - thought that was a great pitch).

Afterward a bunch of people came up to me, that I didn't know, and told me that they really liked my book idea. It was weird.

So, I'm going to change my cover letter to my one minute pitch. Find some agents. Send them a paper copy of my letter, chapter summaries, and the first five pages of my book. And keep going. I have to be close at this point for something to happen.

pitchapalooza

Tonight I'm attending an event with my writer's group. It has the dumb name "pitchapalooza". Everyone gets one minute to give a verbal pitch to a panel of experts (what ever that means and how ever they qualify as an expert). The winner gets a 15 minute consultation that may or may not lead to book publication.

I spent Saturday and Sunday trying to come up with my pitch. I can't decide today whether I'm nervous or not. I wish I knew more about what the format for the event was going to be, and how many people are going to be there. I'm wondering if less people will come because of the snow we got yesterday.

Here's the final version of my pitch:

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have your head almost bitten off by a great white shark? Or to take a 70 foot fall in front of eight tourists while rock climbing in the gunks? Or to complete the Alcatraz to San Francisco swim after learning to swim on the internet?

Me too! That’s why I did those things and then wrote a book about them. My Other Nine Lives is a completed collection of 9 humorous non-fiction essays about my experiences in learning extreme sports, despite having little athletic talent and a knee built out of cadaver parts as a result of an accident that doctors thought would leave me crippled for the rest of my life.

The stories are woven together by a biographical thread that provides insight into managing extreme pain through extreme sports, as well as detailing my romances and mis-adventures with professional extreme athletes. It’s the usual travel adventure book, but with homicidal sled dogs, falling ice, and screaming barfies.