'Twas the Night Before PitchWars

It's that time again! The first Wednesday of the month is the posting day for the Insecure Writer's Support Group! Check out Alex J. Cavanaugh's blog to learn more!

Before I get into it, let me spoil it by saying I did not get picked by a mentor for PitchWars. I didn't really expect to, but I'm not necessarily sorry I entered. I always get that feeling that my work isn't good enough, so why the hell did I let four people read it? That could be an entire IWSG post in itself, but I decided to have a little bit more fun with this one.

Knowing the PitchWars picks were being announced at midnight, I of course decided to stay up and find out. But as the night slowly (I mean, very slowly) crept toward that time, it got harder and harder to deal with the wait. So here was how I spent my night, trying to kill time and ignore all the anxiety and insecurity that was waiting to take over. Enjoy!

8:00: Watch the making of Frozen special on ABC. Why? What do you mean WHY? Haven’t you been here before?? Learn a lot of fascinating stuff and laugh hysterically at least once. Killed an entire hour! Only looked at PitchWars Twitter feed during commercial breaks, I swear.

9:00: Do my daily routine of exercises—crunches, lunges, squats, lifting weights, etc.  

Go back on laptop to find 33 new tweets on the PW feed. Eat some watermelon. Stalk the feed relentlessly.

9:30: Wash ALL the dishes! Except one. It needs to soak.

Look at the feed again. One mentor I submitted to is tweeting but I’m already certain she hasn’t picked me because she’s been tweeting hints for the past few days. It’s definitely not me.

Claw my way to the very back of the fridge & find a Yoplait chocolate whips yogurt. EPIC SUCCESS. See that it’s expired. EPIC FAILURE. Google if it’s safe to eat expired yogurt. Upon research and smell/taste test, decide to eat anyway. Still good.

Missed 13 new tweets during yogurt expedition. See fellow potential mentees are tweeting about how their MC met the love interest with #lovestory. Decide not to touch that one with a ten foot pole.

Step over very fat cat sprawled on the floor to use the bathroom. Forget where I left my glasses. Oh they're in front of the TV. Riiiiiiiiight. Cat is now sprawled across my notebook.

Remember I put a Gatorade in the freezer and should probably get it out so I can have a drink and not a popsicle.

10:00: Still two hours to go. Try not to have a panic attack, especially because I KNOW I'm not going to be picked. Still singing “Let it Go” to myself.

Try to ignore extreme thoughts of self-doubt. Well, no one I sent my book to actually read it, so NO ONE IN THE ENTIRE WORLD IS GOING TO READ IT. Who the hell is going to buy gay fiction written by a straight girl anyway? What the hell was I thinking?!

Self-doubt: 1. Sarah: 0.

Reread blog post from Monday for a good laugh and because I’m pretty sure Jordan doesn’t even know what anxiety is. No, wait! Yes he does, but he thinks it’s a good thing. He feeds on it—gets a rush from it. Try to channel his attitude—it doesn’t work.

Thinking there’s no way my manuscript is good enough to get picked and what the hell was I thinking by entering in the first place?!

You know, I really should have just started watching Frozen at 9:00. This would have killed so much time.

Open up new flat iron I bought earlier in the day since my old one died a horrible death. Wonder when the hell did flat irons get so skinny? New one is 1 ½ inches wide, the biggest one I could find and about ½ the size of my old one. I have a LOT of hair, people. Aint nobody got time for that. It’s quite spiffy, though. And pink! And comes with a stand!

10:20: Floss and brush teeth. Brush teeth while checking Twitter feed.

This happens: I see fiancé putting on socks. “You’re putting on socks?” “Yup.” “Aren’t you going to bed soon?” “……….Oh yeah.” He takes socks off.

Do ridiculous nighttime face washing routine. Come back. It’s only 10:34. Heavy sigh.

10:48: Fiancé goes to bed. I isolate myself with my laptop on our tiny corner table that is more junk pile than table at this point.

11:00 Tune in to Whiskey, Wine, & Writing, very thankful that they’re doing this show since it will kill a whole hour and be lots of fun.

12:00 Brenda Drake’s website crashes because of all of the views. Is anyone surprised? Blog finally goes up! I go through the list. Did I get picked? Nope. Did my beta reader get picked?? Nope. Ehhhh….oh wait, someone I talk to on Twitter got picked as an alternate! Yay? It’s the only joy I can hold onto, so let me have it, dammit!!!

12:26 Ok, seriously, time for bed.