Nine Characters + One Butterfly = Chaos Theory
The Process of Constructing a Pitch Originally posted on Michael Runs the Gamut on May 8, 2014 [Comments from 2021 are in italics, enclosed in square brackets, like this one.] After the first year’s round of pitches, and the first few rejections by agents, I regrouped, re-edited some sections of the book, gave it a …
Prepping For the WLT Conference (2012) Originally posted on Michael Runs the Gamut on May 8, 2014 [Comments from 2021 are in italics, enclosed in square brackets, like this one.] Here’s the final pitch I used for the 2012 WLT Conference. Sorry, I still have to cut a few things. “The mainstream novel, If a …
Prepping For the WLT Conference (2011) Originally posted on Michael Runs the Gamut on April 28, 2014 [Comments from 2021 are in italics, enclosed in square brackets, like this one.] A month after that (3-13-2011), I had already made several changes (not necessarily for the better). This was the first pitch I tried to create …
Pitchapalooza (2011) Originally posted on Michael Runs the Gamut on April 29, 2014 [Comments from 2021 are in italics, enclosed in square brackets, like this one.] In the previous post, I showed you the pitch I used for my novel, If a Butterfly, at the 2012 Writers’ League of Texas’ Agents and Editors Conference. This …
If a Butterfly’s Final Pitch Originally posted on Michael Runs the Gamut on April 22, 2014 [Comments from 2021 are in italics, enclosed in square brackets, like this one.] My previous post was about starting to split a very long novel into two parts. I started working on doing that a few days ago, and …
Originally posted on Michael Runs the Gamut on October 24, 2012 Although If a Butterfly went through many revisions before it was complete, it shrank and grew as I worked. It was at its heftiest (in terms of size) in March/April 2012. At that point it weighed in at 311,032 words, and was 1,151 double-spaced …
Originally posted on Michael Runs the Gamut on September 15, 2012 [Comments from 2021 are in italics, enclosed in square brackets, like this one.] When I finished the second draft of If a Butterfly, about eleven weeks ago [early-summer 2012], it was 280,762 words and 1,093 double-spaced pages. After I returned from the 2012 WLT …
Originally posted on Michael Runs the Gamut on July 25, 2012 [Comments from 2021 are in italics, enclosed in square brackets, like this one.] For the past year or so people have been asking, “How’s your book coming?” referring to my novel. If a Butterfly. I had usually been telling them that the first draft …
Originally posted on Michael Runs the Gamut on July 21, 2012 [Comments from 2021 are in italics, enclosed in square brackets, like this one.] During the past two years [2011 to 2012], because I thought my novel, If a Butterfly, was nearing completion [silly me], I started writing (and practicing) pitches for it. I wanted …