Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself


So about three months ago, a friend of mine (the illustrious Jennifer Minchin) told me about a Twitter hashtag contest:

“You’re writing a book, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You should submit your pitch to the #PitMad tag on Twitter.”
“OK.”

At which point I promptly forgot about it until after the contest deadline had ended. With a shrug, I tweeted my pitch anyway…

Haunted by the ever-present voice of her dead mother, an OCD superheroine fights to get on the world’s premier team. #pitmad
— Anthony (@Sunstreaker84) March 26, 2014

And then I promptly forgot about it again until it got favorited a day later with the message that, if your tweet was favorited, kindly send along your synopsis and the first 10 pages.

At which point I flailed about, all Muppet-style, until my fabulous author-bestie Janie was able to talk me down, grab my shoulders, and shove me in the direction I should be going.

What happened next was a lot of waiting, a lot of refreshing of emails, and a lot of poking and prodding my nascent novel, afraid to touch it until I knew for sure the publisher wanted to see it.

And then they did.

It was possibly one of the greatest moments I’ve had as a writer – someone wanted to see, not just half a dozen pages or a few hundred words; but an entire novel of material that I’d written… Mostly-written… Was…planning on…finishing…

…oh.

It was then that I entered a week-long haze that consisted of little more than grunts at my family and loved ones, lots of panicked texts to Janie, and a small plantation’s-worth of coffee. But on the other side of it I had a novel.

So I sent it off; immediately certain as soon as that familiar whoosh came from the speakers, that what I’d written was horrible, no good, very bad, and would likely get me banned from the Literati forever.

What happened after that was similar to what preceded the manuscript request; only this time I kept waiting to see The Email. The one that thanked me for my time and my effort and encouraged me to keep on truckin’.

And then I did get an email. But it wasn’t The Email.

No, this was an email to initiate The Call.

And after that cotton-mouthed, rapid-blinking, heart-palpitating call, my lovely editor, TJ Loveless of Cliffhanger Press sent me The Contract. This contract, in fact:

So please allow me to introduce myself. I’m Anthony Karcz, author of the upcoming novel Nightingale, to be published in spring 2015 by Cliffhanger Press.

Stick around, will you? It’s going to be a great ride.

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