Whaddya mean "Chainsaw Massacre?"

I didn't get into PitchWars, and that's okay, because I've been working on a new book.

So I've been slogging along, getting some serious wordage done, when I noticed I'd finished the novel... way too soon.  Instead of approaching 80K, I'd clocked in at 60-something.

How on earth did my plot calculation end up fifteen thousand-ish words shy of my target goal?

His Grace, not being a fiction author, wasn't terribly sympathetic. "Why can't you stop there?"

Because the frickin' novel needs to be 80K! Reasons.

So, how does one come up with an extra 10-15K when the plot as-is is tight, with no wiggle room?

A subplot usually does the trick, except I wasn't sure how to fit in a(nother) subplot. I've got three already. The timeline of the novel doesn't have much room for such things, as the whole book takes place over the course of a single evening. There's only so much that can go on at a party.

"Throw in a Chainsaw Massacre," suggests His Grace.

I have a look at my RegRom w/ Magic and say, "Why not?"

__________________________________
Her Grace's plot issue may be solved. Will it be at least 10K? Ask her later.

I entered Pitch Wars!

Of course I did.

#PitchWars has been extra helpful this year with the addition of a ProBoards forum. I found this helpful for improving my query, not so much by the posting and critting of it, but by seeing what everyone else was posting.

I was able to see lots of people making lots of mistakes. For some reason, the more queries I saw, the easier it was to see the mistakes.

When I went back to my own query, I was able to see the mistakes I'd been making. Oops. Once corrected, I feel I got a much stronger query.

Think this is enough to win over a mentor?


 Adrastea, a simple country healer, is surprised to receive a marriage proposal from the Dark God Mor-Lath. As a devotee of a rival god, of course she turns him down. She was raised on chilling tales of this chthonic being who drags the souls of the unrepentant to the underworld. Adrastea loves her simple country life of brewing medicines and saving lives. Marriage to Mor-Lath would greatly complicate things. Besides, why would the Dark God propose to her?

Undaunted by her refusal, Mor-Lath insists on courting her. Sometimes he is charming, winning over the other villagers. Other times, he is ruthless in his actions, refusing to let anyone stand in his way of his pursuit of Adrastesa.

She sees him the dark god he truly is. While he makes it clear he’ll only have her willingly, he’s making it very difficult for her to say no.

Adrastea faces a quandary: her continued refusals puts not only her village under threat of destruction, but possibly the entire land. If she accepts the Dark God's marriage proposal, her soul will never ascend to the Light. Mor-Lath's plaintive desperation hints that even more might be at stake. But what? What is he really after?

Either way, the price is too high. 

OF THE DARK is a 125,000-word Fantasy novel, loosely based on several Greek myths (especially the Adrasteia and Jupiter stories) and is the first of a completed trilogy. 

I'm an Australian author of moderate repute. I've had dozens of short stories and non-fiction articles published and have had several novellas published with The Wild Rose Press. I've been a member of the Online Writing Workshop since its inception. I'm a member of Romance Writers of Australia. By day I work part-time in IT Support. By night I'm an astronomer and citizen scientist, because that's when the stars are out.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

---------------

And here's my first five hundred words.


Adrastea descended into the dark. As her feet touched the cellar's stone floor, the scent of brandy enveloped her. It was stronger here, redolent of peaches and hot summer days and possibly forbidden kisses. Something had broken. Oh dear.

Up in the stillroom Ari Healer peered into the cellar, her anxiety palpable. Her skinny hands gripped the top of the ladder and she sniffled. "Was it my barrel? Please tell me it wasn't my barrel."

"I don't know." Something shimmered at the edge of Adrastea's vision. The auras? She pushed away Ari's worry and squinted into the darkness. Was it a bottle of new brandy that broke, or the barrel of old brandy? Please, not the new brandy. Adrastea had worked so hard distilling enough. Her heart ached at the thought of losing even one drop.

But if it had been Ari's barrel, the one that had sat in this cellar for twenty-five years, its precious contents aging to perfection, that would be a greater loss.

Adrastea drew a breath and coughed. The alcohol stung her lungs too much to tell which one had spilled.

A warm light wavered above the cellar door. "Here. Take the lantern."

"No. Too risky." It would do Adrastea no good if the flame of the lamp ignited the brandy fumes.

Ari's voice shuddered. "It is my barrel, isn't it?"

Again, something shimmered out of the corner of her eye, flaring then fading. Now that was interesting. "Could be the barrel."

Ari let out a whimper.

There! The glimmer brightened at the far end of the cellar. How fascinating. Ari's grief sent pulses along the threads that connected her aura to the barrel. That was new. Even without daylight, Adrastea knew exactly where the barrel was.

Mira Priestess once told her everything in Creation was bound by the Lines of Deeper Power. Everything and everyone was connected, whether they knew it or not. Her mother described them as the warp and weft of the world, present, even if most of the time they could not be seen. Adrastea had never given it much thought until now. They'd just been... there.

They reminded her of shafts of sunlight through a window, when motes of dust sparkled in the beams. As a child, Adrastea had always tried to catch those motes. They always evaded her grasp. She had always presumed these Lines were the same.

Out in the daylight, she could barely tell auras were there, just gossamer webs out of the corner of her eye. Down here in the cellar, they came to her much stronger.

Adrastea relaxed and focused inward, drawing a deep breath. Lines from dried herbs and potions she'd prepared lit up and connected to her. She'd made all this. It belonged to her and brought her deep satisfaction. How comforting to know that something she created with her own two hands did some good in the world.

--------------------

I'm especially proud of this opening, as it passes the Bechdel Test.

So here I sit and forget about #PitchWars until 25 August, when mentees will be announced.

If I get in, YAY! 

If not, I have a Plan B. Sooner or later, this book will be published.

_________________________________

Her Grace hopes her first chapter is voicy enough. That's what mentors are looking for.

PitchWars 2017 - Pimp My Bio (Heidi Kneale - Adult Fantasy Romance)

Prologue

I'm Australian. G'day mate. But I'm not completely dinky-di, as I was born in the US; howdy. Being a dual citizen has its advantages and disadvantages.

Chapter One

I'm Heidi Kneale and this is my bio.  Welcome to PitchWars and PimpMyBio.

Yep, I'm obnoxious.

I write Fantasy and Romance, usually blending the two. My previous works have been compared to Gail Carriger's and Mary Robinette Kowal's.  I'm currently published with a reputable small press (as you do when you're a Romance author) and have recently gone hybrid (as you do when you're a 21st Century author). Now's the time to take my game to the next level.

I've learned much along my publishing journey, enough to know I wanna join all my published mates from the OWW who've done rather well for themselves.


I have a fifty-year career plan. This includes getting an agent and getting published by some Random Penguins. PitchWars could be that one thing that helps me take that next step. So here I am, hoping to impress a mentor, then impress an agent.

Many faces of me?

In my life I have a wealth of ambidextrous polymath skills upon which I can call: (mezzosoprano-schoolteacher-braillereader-swimmer-greenbelt-composer-painter-astrobiologist-chorister-reliefsocietysister-itsupportofficer-webcontenteditor-director-conceptualastronomer-filmmaker-violinist-camper-seamstress-jeparlefrancais-mastercostumer-watercolourer-excellentcook-mother-soundengineer-driver-critter-gardener-womanofcourage-potter-pianist-idealist-driver-richardarmitagesgirlfriend-gamer-habloespanol-supportteam-problemsolver-letterwriter-catfeeder-worldtraveller-mormon-tlhInganHolvIjatlh-leader-volunteer-lawnmower-quilter-and-more).  I won't bother to go into them here in depth, because while this is my bio, it's really about me as an author.

Chapter Two

I write books. I've always wanted to write books, ever since I was eight.

Okay, I first wanted to be an opera singer (age 3), then an astronomer (age 6), then a teacher-astronomer (age 7), then a shuttle went boom (age 8), and I thought it might be better to remain on Earth. That said, I do spend a lot of time here as part of my MSci degree:

But yeah. I was a voracious reader from a very young age, and was impressed to learn that people wrote books, and could do that as a living! So at age 10 I wrote my first novel. Currently working on my 20-somethingth novel.

I've written a handful of books, some of which will never see the light of day and some that I believe will do well published, but the Of The Dark series must be my favourite three children.

I wuves 'em soooo much with much muchness!

Chapter Three

"Waitaminnute," you ask. "Didn't you sub that last year for PitchWars?"

Indeed I did. And I'm subbing it again this year because I love it with all the wuvs in the world and I don't have another novel that's sub-ready. I have done some revision. And I really hope I can find an agent who understands how much love and heart and soul and work and everything I've poured into this beautiful little tale, and that it really needs to be shared with the world.

Like Greek myths?  Of The Dark might be for you. It's based off the Adrasteia and Jupiter stories, but I've thrown in a whole bunch of other Greek myth elements, like Jupiter and Juno, Pluto and Proserpina, as well as a few others. If you're familiar with Greek mythology, you will recognise elements here and there.

But I've not set it in Ancient Greece. Instead, I based my secondary worldbuilding from a period of history I know very well: 19th Century America.

I've got a chthonic god and a bewildered maiden and some rather unfinished business. I have men of courage and women of devotion. I have people with secrets and people with agendas. I have a rich tapestry of a village where actions roll out ripples of consequences.

Chapter Four

Is it a sweet little Romance with a neat and tidy HEA?

No.

The vibe is more like this:

Yeah. There's a bit of darkness in the tale. It's not light and fluffy like all my other published stuff. There's coersion. There's death. There's the breakdown of a village. There's mass murder. There's invasions and battles and betrayals and all sorts of knots of woe. Comp authors: Dave Duncan and Emma Hamm. My regular bevy of Regency Romance with Magic fans may or may not enjoy it. My beta readers are going to wet themselves if I can't get this published. Unlike my other works, the two main characters are not kept apart by circumstances, but by each other.  Relationships are not easy. Sometime the biggest hurdle to a happily ever after is one's own self.

Chapter Five

And the plot. I looove the plot!  It's like this:

My beta readers were impressed. They were all...

Yes, you do. I am not afraid to kill off your favourite characters. And those are the ones who got off easy.

I don't Tweet much, having a life and all, but I'll do my best to keep up and make the occasional lame comment. I love the sense of community with PitchWars. 

Fortune smiled upon me when I got into #MenteesHelpingMentees where the lovely Maxym M. Martineau is helping me get my act together-er.  Even if I don't get in to PitchWars, I plan to pay forward this favour to someone.

End Book One

Book Two: Wherein Her Grace manages to finish her #MenteesHelpingMentees revisions, support and cheer her fellow future mentee potentials, and hopes to have something polished enough to win over hearts.

Book Three: Wherein Her Grace gets into PitchWars, impresses a lot of people, and takes the next step in her career.  Or doesn't get into PitchWars and finds another path for the next step in her career. Regardless of what happens, stuff is going to happen, by gum! I simply prefer one path over another at the moment.

Potential follow-on series: Fail to find an agent with Of The Dark, go indie with it, finish this next Regency Romance with Magic book and query/pitch it next year. Sooner or later I shall woo an agent. It is really hard to have written nearly a million words and not get something right.

______________________________

Her Grace would like to reassure you that yes, that's how Aussies play footy. She still remembers a commentator's tossed out line of "It's only a broken jaw. He'll be fine," from the first game she ever watched.

End of PitchWars and I didn't get in

The odds were never in my favour. Out of 1700+ entries for 130-something mentee spots, you can do the math.

That I didn't get in didn't hurt. For me, the biggest disappointment was that I didn't get a single ms request from my query & Ch1. That's what stung.

During the submission/selection window all the mentors were reading the entries and requesting partials/fulls.  My query letter and Chapter 1 wasn't hooky enough to get anyone's attention.

I suspect it's voice, but I honestly don't know. The reason I suspect voice is because during the window everyone on #PitchWars was raving about voiceVOICEvoice and how that was the one thing that caught their attention. Everything else, they reasoned, was fixable.

But if you didn't have voice...

Now the feed is full of congrats for the lucky mentees and half-glass-full reassurances for the 99% of the rest of that PitchWars isn't the end.

Of course it's not the end. The wise not-mentees will go on to QueryKombat and PitchSlam and the good old-fashioned query train. Anything to achieve their goals of publication. Also, there were many interesting people and resources and CPs and FB groups and lots of stuff. Plenty to be learned from PitchWars.

But the biggest thing I learned is that I can't hook. Could be the query letter (which I desperately rewrote thanks to feedback 12 hours before the submission window), but most likely is the voice in Chapter 1.  I don't base this off of this one contest, but off the dozens and dozens of agents I pitched prior without a single request and this one contest. PitchWars simply confirmed for me that there's something wrong with my hook.

This is more important that one realises. The success of a book at every level depends on the hook. At first the hook is to catch an agent. The agent uses the hook to catch an editor. The editor catches the acquisition board's attention and marketing uses the hook to catch the readers. Readers gush about this one great book because the hook caught them and they had a great time.

Even if I was to go the indie route, I still need that vital hook, more than ever. If I can't hook potential readers, I'm not going to get any sales, never  mind reviews.

Essentially,  I can't go on until I figure out how to make this hook work.

How does one fix voice? Everyone's advice has been, "Write another book."  Okay, great, if you're an apprentice who's just finished their first novel. But what about the journeyman working on their twenty-first?

I wish I could figure out what it was about my voice that sucks.

#Pitchwars Wish List... Land of Broken Dreams?

#PimpMyBio part III?

So the Mentors' #PitchWars Wish List just came out, giving us all an insight into what the Mentors are looking for in a Mentee's project.

When the List of Mentors first came out, I raided it for possibilities. Made a list. Then the interviews came out and I read those with fervor, tweaking my list of potential Mentors. Things were looking good! How on earth would I narrow the list down to six (ne'ermind four)?

Then the Wish List came out... and that was like a bucket of ice.

Me trying to see if my novel will fit someone's wish list.

So I'm hopping blogs, collecting Easter Egg letters and I'm holding up wishlists like a teenage girl gone clothes shopping, and nothing seems to fit just right. That's...

We all know this corner of our dark, wounded souls.

I don't have 21st Century Diversity, I don't portray LGBT relationships, I don't even have sex scenes. I don't do Contemporary. I'm not a Contempo author. I'm a solution-dyed Genre author. My specialty is escapism.

It does, however, pass the Bechdel-Wallace test.

The first strike against me: I've got a blended genre book. Of The Dark has elements from both Fantasy and Romance. I can't call it an outright Romance because the pattern doesn't quite fit. (It's got some definite Women's Fiction themes if that helps (like a woman finding herself and making her own choices in life), but no way one could classify this WF. The other genre elements are too strong.)

If I had to pick just one genre, I'd call it outright Fantasy. I could see it on the Fantasy shelves in the bookstore and a dragon sticker on its spine in the library.  We have a dark, brooding god with the spirits of the dead to do his bidding and a sentient universe full of magic. We have priestesses who can touch that magic and an impending war to disrupt everyone's lives. We have Our Heroine who is perfectly happy to live out the rest of her life in her little country town despite a new-found talent. She's not afraid to tell Our (Anti)Hero to FO.

Could an SFF Mentor help me with this? Very likely. But...

Why isn't this just a straight-up Fantasy? Because the main plot is Our (Anti)Hero trying to convince Our Heroine to marry him. The whole storyline is a Romance trope. We're not talking a subplot of two characters finding comfort amid the darkness of Life. We're not talking character-development kissyface. The whole entire novel is Man Seeks Wife. That sort of thing can turn off a non-Romance reader. (I see several other modern people out there giving me side-eye as well.)

W H Y  he wants her as his bride?
That's what makes it interesting.

Would a Romance Mentor be able to help me with this novel? Absolutely. They'd get the interplay between the two main characters. They'd understand Our (Anti)Hero's drive, his Alpha-ness, and maybe appreciate his determination.  Also, they might get Our Heroine's difficult choices. Our (Anti)Hero desperately needs something from her, but he can't take it from her. She can only give it willingly. And frankly, she doesn't see any reason to cooperate. (Though they may understand why her heart aches, and why she may be tempted sometimes.)

But there's elements that might cause a true-blue Romance fangirl to have second thoughts:

Our (Anti)Hero is not above killing people.
He is not above playing manipulative games.
He [spoilers] later, which is a big No-No in Romance.
This book does not end on an HEA.

These elements are perfectly fine in a Fantasy, almost expected. But Romance? This is not your mother's Mills&Boon.

I've spent a lot of time on character development, and not just on Our Heroine and Our (Anti)Hero.

Our Heroine lives in a village. She's got family, she's a journeyman in her trade (with a mistress/mentor), everyone has their own lives and challenges and issues, and everyone's influenced by everyone else. Someone makes a choice, it's gonna have an impact on others. Events interplay and the ripples are felt throughout the community. I believe this makes for a deep, riveting story. I've had good feedback from CPs and BRs.

This is not a simple book.

Another strike against me: It's not a standalone novel. It's the first novel in a completed trilogy. That alone might make Mentors/Agents/Editors shake their heads.

Readers, OTOH, might adore it.

No, I can't make it a standalone. Yes, the plot arc within the book is complete, but it is part of an even bigger plot arc. I do not want to compromise that uberplot for the sake of a single novel.

I'm afraid this will work against me.

I look at my tepid wet washcloth of a query letter and my straightforward and nuance-free synopsis and wonder how on earth I am going to convince a Mentor to give this book a chance? I have doubts my voice isn't 'fresh' enough to hook The Right Person's attention.

Yet I want to give this a go.

Why?

Because I love this book so much. I want to read it over and over and over. Whatever the fate of this book, I will get a print copy of this to keep on my bedside table. I'll read it until it's in tatters. Then I'll get another copy.  I've written other books and I quite enjoy them. But this one is The Book that makes my heart sing.

This book has the possibility of making others happy as well. I want them to lose themselves in a rich Fantasy world. Let them sigh over the bittersweet Romance. Give them a chance to escape reality (which, frankly, can suck).

I believe commercial publishing will give Of The Dark the best chance of reaching many of those readers who want to read a book like this.

I believe it's got the potential. Convincing others of this? That's the rub.

________________________
Her Grace wants a Mentor.

PimpMyBio part II - Pimping the Pitch

Okay, so my previous #PimpMyBio was more about me as the author.

Here's more about my book:

Title: Of The Dark
Genre: Adult Otherworld Fantasy (with strong Romance-style plot elements)
Status: Finished and ready to rumble

I just had to say how much I love my Fantasy story Of The Dark. I really hope I can convince a mentor and maybe the right agent to fall in love with it as much as I am so we can find an editor who’ll love it and get it published so the whole reading world can have another great book to love and share and fan-fic and cosplay and give me a good reason to go to more conventions and meet other fellow book-lovers.

But most of all, I wrote this story full of love and angst and frustration and growth so that somewhere someone else will read it. I hope that a book of mine can, for a few hours, make someone happy. That’s why I write.




Does my book start in the right place? Of course it does! It starts the moment Our Heroine does something that draws the attention of Our Anti-Hero. Immediately things go SNAFU and that's what makes a book so much fun.

We got a country lass, a journeywoman healer called Adrastea who actually likes her job and her family. Unlike her poor mother, she's respected by the village because Adrastea’s got mad doctorin’ skillz. She’s good at that because she sees how things fit together, how they work.

She sees the lines that connect the universe together, but never gave it much thought because she never realised that few other people could see them as well.  One day when she’s got to locate something in the cellar where it's dim, she sees the lines connecting to the object she’s got to find. They look so solid, she wonders if she can touch them.

Ba-da-bing, she can! Level up for discovering useful skill. Minus XP for not ever realising it in twenty-plus years. (Meanwhile, the GM cackles madly, because Adrastea's touching of these lines Has Consequenses. Everyone roll 2D10 against Luck.)

So, not five minutes later, she’s called upon for a bit of help. Some kid’s fallen in a water tank and the rescue’s going pretty bad. He’ll need some serious doctorin’ if he makes it out alive.  Scene’s some mad chaos as lots of people try to rescue this kid without any form of organised plan. Panic can do that.

One thing she notices is the local priestess attempting to pull on the lines that keep the tank together. She’s not strong enough, so Adrastea steps in to help, 'cause that's what she does. Helpful lass is helpful.

Success is a matter of a point of view. Water tank comes apart, kid gets rescued, everyone’s covered in mud. Priestess is horrified because there was a chance this day would come, and she hoped it wouldn't. This portends bad things afoot. She tells Adrastea to hie thee hence to the sacred spring and go for a wash. No askin’ politely, no explanations why.

Adrastea, bemused, heads off.

But it’s a long way to the sacred spring, so she just stops by the local creek to de-mud-ify herself.

But she’s not alone. Mor-Lath, God of the Dark, appears. The moment she touched those lines, he knew who she was and where. He’s been looking for her for a long time.

Mor-Lath wants a bride. Adrastea’s just the one. It's not so much a proposal, as a tellin' her the way things are going to be.

Adrastea freaks out and runs away. She tells her mother (because sometimes a grown up girl still needs her momma), her aunt and the village priestess.

Everyone's rather concerned about this and keep it hush-hush. After all, he's the Dark One, who haunts all their ghost stories, the one who drags all sinful souls down to purgatory. Also, this village worships the rival god, so there's a bit of the whole Conflict of Interest thing going on. If anyone else finds out about this, we're talking some awkward moments at the next Village Council meeting.

Then someone realises that despite his rather forceful wording, the Dark God's proposal isn't the be-all-and-end-all it seems. Adrastea has a choice. He can't coerce her. He needs her to accept his proposal willingly.

Does she want to become the Dark God's wife?

Her answer is no. Very much no. Her immortal soul is in peril.

(You didn't think it would be that easy, though, did you?)
_______________

Okay, so the story isn't told in that voice. It's more the gently unobtrusive "I Are Serius Fantasy" voice. I've passed this novel through my workshop and even had a freelance editor give it a once-over to ensure I haven't made any Really Stupid Mistakes with it (I hope). I've plotted this tightly, I've done my best to give the characters roundness and life and hope I've tied up all the loose ends that needed tying.

While there are strong Romantic elements in the plotline, I don't know if I would call this a Romance, and I'm not pitching it as such. But the plotline is all about their tumultuous courtship and whether or not Adrastea can deny the God of the Dark his Bride. Sometimes when two people come together, it's not so cut-and-dried that they'll end up together--or if they should.

This story might please readers who thought Bella Swan needed more backbone.

Since we win over the hearts of mentors with the strength of our novel, I'm hoping Of The Dark hits the spot for someone.

PitchWars: Pimp My Bio

So I'm gonna #PimpMyBio for #PitchWars.

Lana Pattinson's got a whole bunch of pimped out bios for PitchWars. Now I'm one of them. Go hop-a-long. Also, this is two parts, with my Pitch accessorised a la Chanel in another post.

tl;dr version:  @heidikneale, subbing a completed adult Fantasy novel, already pubbed (small press), looking for a mentor to help me take my career to the next level (representation by an agent).

I'm Heidi Wessman Kneale
& I write Fantasy Romance.

About Me

I'm a polymath. That means I know lots of things about lots of stuff. I've had plenty of opportunity to become sufficiently masterful at some rather fancy skills.

My day job is IT Support, as it has been for the past twenty-odd years. Got into it at university as a way of supporting my educational habit and never really got out. It pays well, but doesn't satisfy my soul.

I'm a musician. I like music. I spent my teenage years in a symphony orchestra. I performed at Carnegie Hall. Music is my hobby now, even though I once did it professionally. My BA is in Film and Music.

I'm an astronomer. I'm currently pursuing a Master of Science in Astronomy. I observe with a Celestron NexStar 130SLT. I'm more into the conceptual astronomy, rather than astrophysics and I absolutely adore history of astronomy, planetary science and astrobiology.

Look! I shot the Moon!

I never understood the concept of celebrity crushes until I met Richard Armitage ten years ago. I will love him and only him for the rest of my life.

My Author Dream

Everything I've done has had its season and has made me happy for a while. But I keep coming back to the one thing I absolutely cannot live without.

I want to be an author. I always have wanted to be an author.





As a child I secretly dreamed of writing books that people loved. Why? Because I loved books. I loved them soooo much! They were my best friends. I read voraciously.

One of the greatest powers an author can have is to make someone happy because of a book. Writing makes me very happy and I want to share that happiness with others.





I wrote my first novel at age ten. Wrote another couple of novels and a handful of short stories as a teen, but didn't really get serious about writing until my freshman year at university.

My writing apprenticeship started off with a bang when crime author Dr Anne Wingate took me under her wing. “What are you doing studying biology when you should be writing?” she once told me. She was so right. Even when I thought I wanted to be something else (a geneticist), underneath it all, I wanted to be an author.





It's been there the whole time. No matter what I was doing with my life, there was always a novel in my life I was working on. I snuck in writing classes at university. Even when I was severely abused and degraded by my peers in those classes (I wrote genre fiction, they wrote literary), it never killed my thirst to be a novelist.

I joined the Online Writing Workshop in its first year and pretty much spent the next decade and a half there honing my craft. It was incredibly useful for me through my apprenticeship and the first part of my journeymanhood. I highly recommend it. I've participated in crit groups (Vicious Circle and Stromatolights) and have had a handful of beta-readers and CPs.

I had lots of little things published--short stories and non-fiction articles, but hadn't yet cracked the novel market.

That was my fault.

Several years ago I watched as my OWW peeps started getting books published. Good books. Impressive books. Books you have read.

Me? Nothing. Why not?

Because all this time I'd been treating writing as a hobby instead of a career.

So I buckled down and got serious.



I dug out and polished up my favouritest novels and wrote several more. I queried them and submitted some novellas to a small press. The small press loved my novellas and I've been publishing steadily with them ever since.

One query of mine (a Regency Romance with magic) got some nibbles, but no serious bites. I decided to go indie with it because it's a really good story. It's only been out a few weeks, but people have said nice things about it. As soon as I can get more of a marketing push behind it, I expect it to do rather well. I have two more novels in this series I plan on taking indie.

Let's Go Pro

Being a hybrid author has helped show me what I want in a career. Indie's nice and all, but my dreams have always been in the direction of commercial publishing. I enjoy my experience with the small press--the working with a team, an editor to counterbalance my blind spots, a marketing champion who knows the secret promotional handshakes, lovely cover artists. I want to take this to the next level.

I wanna be published by some Random Penguin. For that, I need an agent.




Breakthrough Novel?

I have this beautiful otherworld Fantasy trilogy that I love to bits. My beta-readers adore it. My freelance editor enjoyed it. But I can't seem to win over an agent.

What do you do when the God of the Dark proposes marriage? Say no, of course!

What do you do when Heidi Kneale queries you with a novel? (You're supposed to say yes. Stop saying no!)

What to Expect from Me as a Mentee

I'm a journeyman author. I've written twenty novels (some of which will never see the light of day. Others I hope have a glorious dawning). I've written lots of short stories and I've written a half-dozen novellas. I've spend decades in various crit groups, etc. I've had editors tell me like it is, and together we've created publishable stuff.

I'm not new to the game. You tell me something, I will listen and I will work with you.

In the early stages of my career I had a mentor and I learned so much from her. Every major step of my career has come through the help of others. Now as I search for an agent, I find I am in need of help once more.

I’ve been on the query train for a few years. I’ve gotten some interest in a few full requests and some R&Rs, but there’s as far as it's gone. I would love a mentor to help me lift my game that extra bit so I can reach the next level: representation by an agent.

I hope to find a mentor who can see what I can't. Is it my voice? Is it my pacing? Is my query letter lacking in that je ne sais quois that snags an agent's interest? Beta-readers have helped me immensely, but they can't help me with those little things that an agent might be looking for.

Maybe a PitchWars mentor can.

I believe I've written a novel with a solid plot with deep characters; it's kept my beta-readers up all night. I need advice on how to lift this glorious novel to the next level.

So, I'm entering PitchWars 2016.

Let me introduce you to OF THE DARK.

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Her Grace is done with dreaming about success and would much rather work for it.