Pitch Wars #pimpmybio

Hi guys! I’m entering Pitch Wars next month, which – for those of you who don’t know – is a competition where you submit your polished manuscript to up to four potential mentors, and if you’re chosen you get to work with a mentor for two months to perfect your manuscript and pitch for the agent round in November.

I’ve also entered #MenteesHelpingMentees, which is a pre-Pitch Wars raffle to win a query and first 10 pages edit by a past mentee. Wish me luck! (Update: I got picked!! The fabulous Kristen Clouthier read my query and first ten pages and gave me some amazing feedback, thank you so much Kristen!)

As part of the whole Pitch Wars event, Lana Pattinson has created the #pimpmybio blog hop, where participants share their bio and a brief summary of their WIP and both mentors and potential mentees can hop around and get to know everyone. From what I’ve seen, the biggest benefit of Pitch Wars is the community and the friendships that are formed, so I wanted to take part and hopefully make some new writer friends!

About my WIP

Seventeen year old Aria Colling is a changeling. She’s the daughter of a king from the Fair Realm who hid her in the Human Realm as a baby to protect her from the wrath of her uncle, the evil Celeste King.

Weeks before her eighteenth birthday, she’s kidnapped by a group of Fair soldiers and taken on a long and perilous journey to the kingdom of her birth, where she must take the throne when her ailing father dies.

Along the way, she discovers the poverty and war the Fair have suffered for over a century, and soon realises that she may be the only one with the power to defeat her uncle and his army of dark creatures. If she isn’t betrayed by those she has come to think of as friends first.

THE FAIR QUEEN is a YA portal fantasy for fans of THE QUEEN OF THE TEARLING and THE REMNANT CHRONICLES.

I completed the first draft in January and it’s been through several rounds of edits and beta reads to make it the best it can be! It’s my first novel so I’m looking for a mentor who can teach me everything they know about editing and getting my MS and pitch ready to query. I love NaNoWriMo and work best with strict timelines and targets. Most of all I’m really excited to learn and improve my manuscript any way possible!

About me

I studied Modern Languages at uni, including European Literature, and I’ve been working in marketing for the last five years.

Aged ten, I wrote a poem inspired by Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes about Red Riding Hood, which the Ofsted inspector loved and took a copy to show round other local primary schools, so I’ve always been a creative writer.

I love having a project on the go at all times and I’ve had lots of different hobbies. I used to have an Etsy store where I sold my vintage teacup candles and Scrabble art, I also taught myself paper cutting and make presents for my friends and family.

I live in Lincolnshire, England with my military husband and our pointer puppy, Bailey, and when I’m not marketing, writing or reading I like to craft, cook and binge watch the latest Netflix craze.

I’m a huge YA fantasy fan, some of my favourite authors are Maggie Stiefvater, Leigh Bardugo, Cassandra Clare and Sarah J. Maas. I’m also an enormous Harry Potter fan, and can’t believe I have tickets to the Cursed Child play in December!

OK, that’s enough about me. If you’re taking part in Pitch Wars give me a wave in the comments and I’ll catch you on Twitter!

Lyndsey

A blogging update

It’s been about 10 months since I started this blog and it has gone through some pretty big changes in that time, so I wanted to do a quick update about how far it’s come, and hopefully will go! When I started I never imagined how welcoming and supportive the book blogging community could be, but you’ve all taken me in and accepted me as one of your own, and I can’t express how grateful I am!

Then…

When I started this blog it was intended to be somewhere I could post about my writing progress and share reviews of books I read, but having discovered book tags and awards, memes and blog hops, it’s become so much more than that. The interaction is my favourite part of blogging now, being tagged by other bloggers and chatting in the comments, hopping around everyone’s posts, whether it’s Top Ten Tuesday or the Author Toolbox.

I hope you enjoy the kinds of posts I share as much as I enjoy writing them! If there’s anything you’d like to see more of, or less of, just let me know in the comments.

Now…

So, you might have noticed I gave the blog a bit of a refresh a few months ago, changing the template and layout etc. I also created a page where all my review are archived for ease, and I wanted to ask if you would appreciate having the star ratings listed on this page too? At the moment the star rating is only in each review, I don’t list it in the blog titles or on the Reviews page. Let me know what you would prefer in future.

I also created a page where you can find out more about my own books and what I’m currently writing. There’s also a link to sign up and download the first three chapters of The Fair Queen, my first novel, which I’m about to enter into #PitchWars. I’m so nervously excited about the pitching process, but I feel like this competition will be my best bet for finding representation and a good way to throw myself into the querying trenches. If you’ve taken part in a previous Pitch Wars or you’re planning to enter this year let me know in the comments! I’ve entered #menteeshelpingmentees, so I can’t wait to find out if I’ve won and one of the past mentees is going to help me perfect my entry. I’ll keep you all up to date with how everything goes!

I joined Netgalley this week, which – for those of you who don’t know – is a website where publishers and indie authors post their upcoming books and bloggers, librarians, school teachers and other influencers can request e-ARCs (electronic advanced reader copies) to read and review or decide whether to stock it on release. I applied for a couple of books and quickly received polite rejection emails, so I googled how to get accepted and found lots of advice for improving my profile and increasing my chances of getting the books I want. I downloaded a couple of the Read Now books, which are books that everyone is automatically accepted for, to give my feedback on and start building my profile up. Hopefully, before long I’ll be getting exciting ARCs like some of the fabulous, established bloggers I follow.

I also signed up to the Book Depository affiliates program, which you might have seen if you’ve read any of my recent reviews. This is a scheme where I share links to the Book Depository website for any books I mention in a blog post, and if any of you click through and decide to buy it I can earn 5% commission. It doesn’t affect my reviews, they’re still completely my own opinions and I’m not being paid to share them, or even encouraged to read and review particular books. So nothing will change around here except that you can now click on a book title and buy the book and support my blog at the same time!

I also started posting my reviews on Goodreads, and shared another YouTube video of an Illumicrate unboxing, and I plan to make more videos, so let me know what kinds of BookTube videos you love in the comments!

And I joined Bookstagram, but I haven’t posted any photos yet as all my books are currently packed ready for the move! I’d love it if you popped across to Instagram and followed my new account, it’s @lyndleloo_books and I’ll post my first bookstagram photo soon…

In a couple of days, Camp Nano begins (I’m also moving house, but that’s a whole other story) and I’ll be starting to write the first draft of a completely new WIP, tentatively called Cockle Shells and Silver Bells. It’s a YA magical realism reimagining of The Secret Garden, which I can’t stop thinking about and I’m hoping will be really fun to write! Since finishing The Fair Queen and handing it over to beta readers last month I’ve been desperate to start something new, but I’ve taken my time in planning and outlining my new WIP so that I’ll have everything pretty much in order by July 1st for Camp.

I’ve set my target at 35k, which is the most I’ve ever achieved during Nano, so fingers crossed I’ll at least achieve that, but with the aforementioned house move I’m not too sure. At the end of the day, words are words, and any achievement is a success, so I’m not too worried. Wish me luck!

Next…

I’ve been thinking about moving this blog over to a new domain and hosting, but I’m not exactly sure how it all works so I’ve been putting it off until now. I’m planning to make the move in a few months, once I’m all settled in my new house and everything is back to normal, so I’ll keep you all posted when the time comes. It shouldn’t affect how you see my blog, I’ll be sticking with WordPress, just moving to the self-hosted version, so I should still appear in the Reader, etc.

If you have any tips for moving from WordPress.com to WordPress.org, leave them in the comments please!

It’s been a whirlwind ten months, what with starting and growing this blog, finishing my first novel and preparing to enter a pitch competition, discovering and taking part in two (soon to be three) NaNoWriMos, joining BookTube and Bookstagram, and everything else that’s gone on at home and work, but I wouldn’t change a single thing. I’m enjoying being a part of the online bookish community so much, you’re such a crazy, sweet and fun bunch and I love reading all your posts and chatting with you in the comments and on Twitter. I’ve definitely found where I belong, and I’m looking forward to many years of being a part of this amazing community and getting to know you all better!

Thanks for reading, and being a part of my little blogging world 🙂

Lyndsey

The ABCs of alphas, betas and critique partners

Today, I want to discuss the stage of writing that I’m currently at, which is sharing my writing with readers!

I recently finished my first novel, The Fair Queen, and sent it to a few trusted friends and family to read. Some of them are actually proofreading it – I keep getting messages with grammatical errors and misspellings! I’m really grateful to them all, and so far everyone’s really enjoyed it, which is amazing to hear.

As scary as it may be, letting people read our work is the only way to progress – whether that’s improving our writing skills by getting feedback from readers and editors, or seeking to publish by sending our stories to agents and publishers. It’s an integral and crucial part of being a writer.

Let’s talk about the process of sharing our work with others.

Critique Partners

From what I’ve read, most writers recommend having a Critique Partner. This is someone who really gets your writing – they most likely write within your same genre and age range so they really understand the requirements and standards of the genre.

A critique partner is basically a really good friend who loves your style of writing and enjoys reading your stuff. It should be a mutual relationship ideally – well, all the best friendships are! They should compliment the bits they like, critique the bits they don’t, and explain why it’s not working for them (if they can, it’s not always cut and dry). Ultimately, your critique partner should help you see past any blind spots you have for your own writing, and push you to improve your craft. Their work should inspire you to be a better writer, and yours should do the same for them.

The usual process with critique partners is to send short segments of your writing as you go, rather than sending a full manuscript at the end. You can agree on a frequency that suits both of you, whether that’s chapter by chapter, or 1,000 words at a time.

There are some great blogs about finding critique partners, I’ll leave a few links below rather than go into the how, as I haven’t actually got a critique partner so I’d rather you learnt from someone in the know!

5 places to find critique partners | writability
How to meet awesome critique partners (and keep them) | Writer, writer, pants on fire
5 things to look for in a critique partner| Writer’s Digest

And if you’re ready to find your one true critique partner, pop along here:

Critique Partner Matchup | Maggie Stiefvater

Alpha Readers

I’ve seen the term alpha readers bandied about online, and from what I understand they are the people you love and trust to read your finished manuscript first. They’re the friends and family members with an eye for detail and a firm grasp of the English language who you know will appreciate your work and give you a list of notes to help make improvements before it goes out to beta readers.

They might not be big fans of your genre, or know anything about the writing craft, but they want to help you be the best you can be, and they’re willing to give you another perspective.

Not everyone uses alpha readers, or they might not call them that, they just give their MS to their husband/wife, or mum, and get another pair of eyes on it before anyone else sees it.

Beta Readers

Now these are your potential fans, readers who are willing to read your polished MS and tell you which characters they love and hate, which plot twists they saw coming a mile off, and which romantic relationships felt forced. Beta readers probably won’t proofread, they might not even suggest any edits, but they will tell you what they liked and didn’t like about your book, and that is crucial to any writer. If you want your book to sell, it has to appeal to people other than yourself.

Beta readers might be fellow writers, if so it’s polite to offer to beta read their work in exchange for them reading yours. At the end of the day though, beta readers are just that – readers. They will look at your novel from the perspective of a reader and help you to make it as enjoyable as you possibly can. They’ll point out plot holes and inconsistencies, they might even act as sensitivity readers if they have experience of any of the issues within your story.

ABCs of alphas, betas, critique partners Lyndsey's Book Blog

Not every writer will want or need to use CPs, alphas and betas, but the more eyes you can get on your writing before sending it to a professional editor or submitting it to agents, the better. At the very least you should let a few people read your completed manuscript and highlight spelling/grammar issues and any plot holes you may not be able to see as you’re too close to the project.

You want to iron out as many creases in your work as you can before sending it to agents and publishers, querying can be an uphill battle and first impressions really do count. Don’t waste your chance at publishing by sending in a sloppy first draft that has never been seen by another human being.

I know how scary it can be to share your precious story with someone else, but it’s the only way to make it better, and if your intention is to publish then one day someone is going to read your work and you need to prepare yourself for that! The more people who tell you how great your writing is now – even if they critique it – the less it will hurt when that first negative review rolls in, and it will. It’s a fact of life for all writers. You can’t please everyone, and nor should you try. Write for yourself, or that one person you know will enjoy it, I promise you will find others who feel the same way.

Be brave, writer friends! Send your story to a friend today and start building your support network of readers, they’ll be the ones cheering the loudest when you bag that agent, sell your novel, and see your book on the shelf for the first time.

Lyndsey