#PitchSlam Recruitment Update!

Incoming H.E.L.M. transmission. Do not adjust your modem or router settings.

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Connection established. Signal stabilized.

Greetings potential recruits. If you’re receiving this message, you’ve locked on to one of the H.E.L.M. secure frequencies. This is not an easy feat, meaning you’re smart, resourceful, or lucky. Maybe even a combo of the three. Either way, you’re what we’re looking for.

Recruitment is in a couple of months, and we’ll be evaluating y—

000111100101001001001

ERROR

Signal lost.

System reboot.

REBOOT

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Signal intercepted. Security protocol alpha engaged.

Yeah, how about not. Look, while JARVIS handles their security protocols or whatever, let’s you and I chat for a minute. Actually, it’s more like you, you, you you, and you, that guy back there and I, but who’s counting.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, I’ll clue you in. This is Tony Stark, and I’m not supposed to be here talking to you. Youse. You all. But I figured H.E.L.M. hasn’t told you much about their super secret recruiting, and breaking S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol is much more fun than whatever meeting I’m supposed to be attending right now. So, inside info. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s brought in five heavy hitters to do whatever they do, lead, captain, sound the charge, all of that. Yours truly wasn’t invited to the party, but that hasn’t kept me from crashing it.

You’d think Fury would’ve caught on by now.

H.E.L.M. wants to keep all of that private, something about security risks and national safety, boring spy talk. I don’t see the big deal in letting loose a little information, especially to the people they plan on telling anyway. And since Nick is SO fond of that fortune favors the prepared crap, I’m simply embodying the man’s moral practices, not divulging federal secrets. You can’t be prepared if you don’t know what’s coming down big-brother’s pipeline. So, here’s the deal: you stay tuned for their little non-announcing announcements, and I’ll throw out a confidential file on one of the squad leader candidates every once in a while. It’ll keep you informed and me entertained.

Understood? Great. We now return you to your regularly scheduled BS.

JARVIS, roll that beautiful bean footage.

End broadcast.

System rebooting.

REBOOT

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Signal re-established. Connection to H.E.L.M. communications confirmed.

Apologies for the interruption. It seems we were experiencing some technical difficulties. Nothing to worry about, it’ll have zero effect on the upcoming recruitment session. However, if you experience similar signal disruption in the future, understand it is simply the team who maintains our communications testing the security. You can dismiss any broadcasts received during that time. We repeat, dismiss any broadcasts that could be perceived as signal disruption, it’s only a test. As always recruits, remain alert.

We’ll be in touch.

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Transmission terminated.

Attention Potential #PitchSlam Recruits!

Incoming H.E.L.M. transmission. Do not adjust your modem or router settings.

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Connection established. Signal stabilized.

If you are seeing this message it means you’ve been vetted via the H.E.L.M. database of potential writer heroes. Director Fury himself initiated this program and, as we’re sure you’re aware, he has a knack for calling on some of the best. Congratulations, you’ve got what it takes. But answering the call is only half of the equation. The other half is what you bring to the table.

To participate in the H.E.L.M. initiative you need two things. The first is a 35 word pitch for your completed and polished manuscript. 35 is a hard limit. The second is the first 250 words of that same manuscript. If 250 hits the middle of a sentence (by middle we mean genuinely the middle, like right here, not two words into it) then finish. 255 is the hard limit.

For those not sure what we mean by completed and polished: if a S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent was to provide clearance for you to send you work today, the only thing keeping it from going out immediately is whether you have direct access to your computer.

What this means is all potential recruits need to be good to go, all green, wheels up on that manuscript. You’ve got a little over two months from today to get mission ready.

We’ll be in contact.

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Transmission terminated.

My Writing Style Survey

Thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions about yourself. The results of this survey will reveal your particular writing style.

Have you noticed anything strange about yourself? Are you able to do things most people cannot? Do you possess the power to create worlds and fill them with life, laughter, love? Can you conjure kickass characters and badass villains with a thought? Can your written words provoke thought, stir the heart, or tempt the soul? Are you able to rescue the love interest, defeat the bad guy, and save the world with your bare hands?

If you answered No to the previous questions, then your writing style is determined to be merely sufficient. Thank you for your time and effort.

Please disregard the rest of this message and go about your business.

Have a wonderful rest of your day!

If you answered Yes to any the previous questions, place your hand squarely over your mouse or against your touchpad and hold.

Scanning…

Scanning……

Scanning…………..

Digital genetic profile registered. Establishing secure connection to H.E.L.M. communications.

Transmitting.

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Welcome, potential recruit. You are receiving this encrypted message because we’ve been watching you, and we’re impressed. We believe you are a perfect candidate to join the H.E.L.M Initiative for hero writers – Hunt for Exhilarating Literary Material.

People are crying out for awesome stories to help them escape the dullness of everyday life. The world needs your talent, so a group of veteran heroes (hosts) has come together to form and lead specialized squads to combat this boredom epidemic.

These leaders will provide feedback, helping you hone your natural story-telling abilities. Once you’re put through Basic Training and Combat Drills, some of you will be selected from the recruit roster to join the H.E.L.M. squads, making you honorary hero writers, but it doesn’t end there. If you’re chosen, it’ll be time to Suit Up, because Agents from S.H.I.E.L.D. will be assessing your performance to see if you’re ready for active field duty.

This is the real deal, recruit. The publishing industry needs heroes like YOU. Your talent, your story, your commitment to the cause. Keep your eyes and ears open for further details. We’ll be in contact.
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Transmission terminated.

It's coming....

October 5 – 13, 2014

#PitchSlam

Pitch Slam! Are you ready to ROCK?!

Today's the big day! My fellow managers and I have sifted through the glorious mountain of slush and found our twelve band members! Some shook us with their killer drum solos. Some brought a tear to our eyes with a whaling guitar solo only 80's hair bands could touch. Then there were the ones with the voice of a rock angel. We heard you and KNEW you had to be ours.

We negotiated, cried, and even battled where YOU determined where certain entries would end up. And today you find out who made it on our teams!

Also, if you see something wrong with your entry (due to formatting,) please email the pitch slam email to let us know.

Now.... *cues drum roll*

*lights flash*

*clears throat*

Execs and authors! Are you ready to rock out with Team Magenta?!

*P!nk's Perfect blares in the air*

Check out the other teams at the links below! And remember, only agents can comment during 8am EDT - 4pm EDT!

Team Spyder - http://tangynt.wordpress.com

Team Stray Tats - http://lucashargis.com/

Team Sweeter - http://www.michelle4laughs.blogspot.com/

Team Electric - http://rahdieh.tumblr.com/

Congrats to everyone who made it on a team. Just know that there were so MANY amazing ones that it was tough to pick just 12 each. So keep going if you weren't picked. That yes will come your way if you do!

Good luck everyone!

Rockin' Honorable Mentions: I hated I couldn't have you all!

Confessions of a Schoolgirl: The 3:05 Goodbyes & The Discarded.

You were so close to making the final cut. I wanted to give you a shout out just because it was up to last minute before Brandi and I made our final picks and you were right there the entire time. We wish you much luck in the query trenches!

Team Magenta - When The Clock Broke

Genre: NA Fantasy Romance

Title: WHEN THE CLOCK BROKE

Word Count: 80,000 words

Song: ‘Time’ by Anastacia


Pitch: Twenty-year-old Aidelle smashes a timepiece as Phillip leaves her, sealing herself in a timeless reality. When she finds out he was blackmailed, Aidelle must cross volatile ‘timestreams’ to rewrite their breakup or be erased forever.

250:

Miss Aidelle Masters stared at the ground so hard, she thought her gaze would burn the stonework steps of the taxicab station to a shingly mess. A pair of boots – the latest black with knife-sharp eyelets – marched into her sight. She’d wondered when the shoes would find their way into her private space.

“Are you waiting for him?” asked the owner of the shoes. “So obedient, but a shame you share none of your sister’s petticoat trim.”

Aidelle faced the socialite bully’s snarl, equal eyes and – gasp! – a poker-straight nose. She wasn’t alone. In the ten minutes the flock by the taxicab shelter had twisted their faces in Aidelle’s direction, she’d filled a page of her pocketbook with sine, cosine, and tangent calculations. Now she’d run out of inked distractions. Well, she’d run out of ink.

“Aphrodisya.”

“Masters.” Aphrodisya Vallente’s eyes swept down Aidelle in one sharp movement. “No dress today?”

Aidelle kept her mouth a wordless line.

“Shame,” Aphrodisya said. “Your shoddy frills would’ve well matched the shoddy lines of your features.”

Bile seared up Aidelle’s throat. She shot the shelter a glare. One girl, hand twirling locks, lowered her paper fan and displayed a sterile smile.

“No defence? Well, you cannot even—”

Aidelle’s cheeks flamed, and this time her words escaped. “What is it, Aphrodisya? Because I have my fiancé and you don’t?” Gah, curse her uncontrollable tongue!

Fibres of Aphrodisya’s hair frizzled in the August heat as she parted her vicious lips. “You know you don’t deserve him.”

Team Magenta - The Unchosen One

Genre: MG Adventure

Title: THE UNCHOSEN ONE

Word Count: 30,000 words

Song: “You’re the Best Around” by Joe Esposito

Pitch: 12yo Peter wants to be a hero—enough to believe he’s chosen to fight a crime organization known as The Invisible Arm. His naive, nerdy ambition could get him arrested, killed, or even worse…expelled.


250:

Third Street wasn’t busy, but Peter’s sister chose the worst moment to chase after her baseball.

At first, Peter’s brain refused to let him move. He tried to warn her—tell her to look both ways, but his voice didn’t work. When Sally’s TOMS stepped from the curb onto the sizzling street, he began to hyperventilate. A pickup truck sped toward her, unaware of the helpless child in its path.

Peter couldn’t wait a second longer. His sister was about to share fates with the careless deer that littered the highway. He sprung forward, reached for Sally and raised the other arm like a traffic cop.

“Halt!” The word burst from his mouth as the overwhelming heat took his breath away. He shut his eyes and braced for impact. A deafening pop shot down Third Street. Burnt rubber and exhaust fumes drifted over Peter and Sally, but the truck didn’t follow.

Peter opened his eyes and released his breath. His pants were damp, but he did it. He saved his sister. Was he a hero? It was hard to tell, but yes, yes he was.

A skin-and-bones boy slammed the car door, scratched his peach fuzz and examined the flat tire.

“Perfect.” He wiped his forehead and spit. “First it’s the muffler, now it’s a tire—rusted old hunk of scrap metal. Why don’t you die already?”

Peter turned to Sally. “Are you okay?” She clutched her baseball with the ungloved hand and nodded, unsure if she believed herself.

Team Magenta - The Haunting of Springett Hall

Genre: YA Paranormal

Title: The Haunting of Springett Hall

Word Count: 69,000

Song: Dead Man's Party by Oingo Boingo


Pitch: Lucy's such an incompetent ghost that nobody notices she's haunting Springett Hall, but she's certain she died trying to rectify some terrible mistake—one she must remember and set right before oblivion reclaims her forever.


250:

Light drew me back from the void of oblivion. The sun’s rays pooled around me through a crack in red velvet curtains and spilled across the floor. I stood blinking at the morning sunlight, my mind as still and dark as a well. Shimmering flecks of dust hovered in the air. I waved to stir them, and they floated through my palm.

I gasped and jerked my hand back, staring at it. Through it, really. Even when I covered my eyes, I could see the furniture on the other side of the room: a grandfather clock with its hands stopped, a mahogany side table and sofa, and a portrait draped in black.

Someone had died.

I turned my translucent hands back and forth. Yes. Someone had.

My eyes tingled, but no tears came. I raced to the curtains to fling them open, but my fingers passed through their thick folds. Whimpering, I wrapped my arms around myself and paced.

What had happened to me? I ran my fingers over my face, my hair, my bustled dress. No injuries marred my body. But do ghosts remain as they were when they died or return to some earlier state? How was I supposed to know? I couldn’t even remember my name.

A thought shone past my confusion like a paraffin lamp. There was something I needed to do, some important task left unfinished. That fit my notion of ghosts. Didn’t they—we—always have a purpose binding us to this world?

Team Magenta - Little Miss BlogAlot

Genre: Upper MG/Contemporary

Title: Little Miss BlogAlot

Word Count: 36,000

Song: Secrets - by One Republic

Pitch: When thirteen-year-old Ami Sanchez’s anonymous tell-all blog gets outed by an act of social-revenge, Ami must decide if online companionship is enough or if she has the courage to fight for IRL friends. #BlogGirlProblems.

250:

Ami felt the hooks of her training bra pop open in mid-stride. Her body went completely stiff, petrified to take another step. The tips of her ears and cheeks burned in color-coordinated mortification. She negotiated an intense prayer, even offering up her precious cell-phone for invisibility, but Ami knew she'd have no such luck.

Getting her period, a new pimple and now a faulty first bra, Ami might as well let a stream of brown toilet paper hang out of her jeans and just call it a day.

Chest-stares zoomed in, as if every kid in the hallway could see the turmoil going on underneath Ami's shimmery white tank top.

She forced herself to move, walking like a challenged robot over to her locker. She practically wore a blinking forehead sign that read: YUP, THAT'S RIGHT, MY MOM MADE ME WEAR A DEFECTIVE BRA!

Why was everyone gawking at her unfortunate hook-incident? It's not like she had boobs or anything. But her mom's argument that one day she would is what forced her to be the Monday Morning Stare Spectacular.

Using her notebook as a booby-shield, Ami forfeited all upcoming thirteenth birthday wishes for just one baggy-anything to be left in her locker.

SOMETHING.

Please, please, please...

"Yes," she whisper-cheered, when she discovered a wrinkled denim shirt crumpled beneath her gym sneakers. Ami scrambled to get her bare arms through the sleeves.

Now she reeked of musty hot locker. AwesomePew.

Team Magenta - The Lantern's Tithe

Genre: YA Fantasy

Title: The Lantern's Tithe

Word Count: 89,000

Song: Blackbird by The Beatles

Pitch: When Arcanu enrolls in the Academy, he expects to study the theory of magic. Not to be assigned to spy on his twin brother, who is fomenting a rebellion against everything the Academy stands for.


250:

"Arcanu!"

My brother's werelight sparked and flared in the darkness above me. He coaxed the golden orb from his fingertips, sending it drifting upwards to illuminate the room. His scarred hands flickered through a flurry of signs.

Father's here. He told me to wake you. He said he needed to talk to you as soon as possible–

I'll come see him right away, I signed. Just let me get dressed.

Our father– here, now? It was too good to be true. I'd only seen him a handful of times in my life, but he always made me feel like I was his favorite son. Once, when I was little, I even promised him I'd take his place in the Council when I grew up.

What a pretty dream that had been. Pretty, and short-lived.

Could my father still be clinging to the wreckage of that dream? Was that why he'd come? If so, he'd be sorely disappointed.

As I shrugged on my tunic, I noticed that Lycænu was already dressed. He probably hadn't even tried to go to bed– his insomnia had worsened in the weeks since our mother's death. Without waiting for me to finish tying my boots, he darted through the splintering wooden doorway. I hurried after him, bootlaces trailing.

Our father sat cross-legged on the dirt floor. Lycænu knelt beside him, his werelight sallow against the harsher glow of the hearth. Eltenu, Lycænu, and me: a strange, sorry little family, but we were all we had left.

Team Magenta - Chasing Eveline

Genre: YA Contemporary

Title: Chasing Eveline

Word Count: 61,000

Song: “Both Sides Now”, Joni Mitchell


Pitch: Sixteen-year-old Ivy’s mom is long gone, but the unanswered questions linger. To get answers, though, Ivy must reunite their favorite 80s band Chasing Eveline. A concert is the only sure place to find her mom.


250:

They say music is the key to the soul. Or maybe it’s the heart. I can’t remember exactly what my mom said that day she danced into my room with a new record for me to hear; I was only in fourth grade. I became a believer, though. And tonight my friend Matt and I hold a giant master key to all the teenage hearts and souls in this musty gym.

Or at least to some, I hope. Finding my mom depends on it.

I nudge Matt, whose face is glued to the computer screen at our DJ table. A vibrating speaker to our left thumps out music, so I yell into his ear, “Is it ready?”

He tilts his head toward me. “Geez, Ivy. I just loaded the disc.”

“Okay…sorry.” I step back. He sweeps his blond hair out of his eyes and returns to the computer.

I pace behind him, a nervous left followed by an excited right and back again. The musical brilliance of the greatest guitarist of all time will soon weave through these bodies and drift into every ear. My heart floats up with the blue and yellow balloons hovering overhead like a latex fog.

Matt still fidgets with the computer. Ugh.

My hand strums on my thigh. Near the entrance, Principal Henry stands with Narc 1 and Narc 2, and a wave of yawns travels across them. The newbie freshmen line the walls and cluster in groups. The mood is more like a casting call for an acne medication ad.

Team Magenta - Falling for Insanity

Genre: YA Contemporary

Title: Falling for Insanity

Word Count: 54,000

Song: The Scientist by Coldplay


Pitch: Jessica murdered her best friend's mother. Now in a mental institution, she must put her trust in the hands of a troubled intern to bring back her sanity, or risk losing her freedom forever.


250:

I did not murder Ricardo Montanez.

Then why are my hands so filthy? Why are they so red?

But no, that’s not right. My hands are smooth and pale, empty and small. I stare at them, torn between the image I see in my head—shadows and blood—and the image I see right before my eyes.

Somewhere outside of the police cruiser I am sitting in, hordes of people are watching, waiting in silent horror. Red and blue lights flash. I hear voices, loud and demanding. They all seem to be asking the same question.

Who murdered Ricardo Montanez?

The police think it is me. In the morning, everyone will think it is me. Knowing this, I should be afraid. I should be terrified. But the fabric of my mind is unraveling, a quick spiral of thread piling on the floor of my thoughts. I cannot look away from my hands, cannot fathom what these hands have done, what these hands have lost.

If I try to fathom it, I will lose myself.

I am losing myself.

I have lost myself.

“Miss Lahmer?”

A man hovers over me, wearing a hastily tucked button-down and slacks that are two sizes too small. I see all of this out of the corner of my eye, since I cannot bother to look away from my hands, which have begun to shake. The man breathes heavily above me, smelling faintly of chemicals, and it is then that I know.

He’s a doctor.