Two weeks ago, I participated in author Brenda Drake’s “Pitch Madness” contest, in which you have 35 words to “pitch” your novel followed by the first 250 words of the novel. Mine was eliminated before it reached the literary agent round. I’ll include it below. I think the first 250 words could have lead the early readers to believe that it’s a religious novel, as opposed to a novel with some religious characters in it, but it still seems like a strong opening to me.

Anyway, this week Drake sponsored #Pitmad, in which authors could pitch their novels within the constraints of a Twitter post—140 characters, which had to include the hashtag #pitmad, and the genre. You weren’t allowed to post more than once an hour and if an agent favorited your tweet, you sent him/her your submission.

Here were mine, which did not attract any agents:

#pitmad Dissident recounts struggle w/wife to bring down fascist U.S. regime, how his infidelities devastated her Dystopian/literary

#pitmad Islam Goldberg-Jones recounts how he cheated on wife as they brought down fascist US regime. Dystopian Literary

But then I discovered #FAKEpitmad, which had offerings such as

Britney visits an exotic foreign country and finds non-Americans have better things to do than facilitate her self-discovery. #fakepitmad

Really Average Girl attracts Really Hot Guy with murky past who wants her for no reason we can understand. #FakePitMad

For some reason, over the course of four hours, fake pitches kept popping out of my head. Given that I am leaving the country at the end of the month and am REALLY pressed for time, I consoled myself by thinking they really did only take seconds to produce. So here they are, from most to least recent.

His coal black eyes looked down at her from the dune. She would follow his path now. THE WAY OF THE GERBIL #fakepitmad

When Nazi cult resurfaces in Indianapolis, Chief Detective Lisette McCoy thinks “Stupid History Channel” #FakePitMad

“We will never get past the race issue,” said the hare to the tortoise as they stared into their whiskeys. #fakepitmad
I confess I plagiarized this one from a framed cartoon in my office.

When evil Christian Romance antagonist folds ingénues into his arms he actually turns them two-dimensional #fakepitmad

Buffy Slayeresque heroine attracted to Westboro Baptist fanatic picketing her church. Hilarity ensues. #NA #fakepitmad

Migraineurs discovered to have epic powers to heal planet. Will they choose to live w/projectile vomiting? #Fakepitmad

Very pragmatic woman with spastic bosom must deal with people under assumption she is always overwrought #fakepitmad

Slave laborer in oil fields eventually discovers he is mining sebum from blackheads of giant human’s nose #fakepitmad This got me an “ewww from a fellow participant.

Susan, polydactylic cellist from Labrador, must enter the ring with Yo Yo Ma. Only one will leave alive. #Fakepitmad

Jane Austen, sent forward in time, gets job working for Amnesty International; Told her reports too wordy #Fakepitmad

Modern retelling of Book of Judges with gender roles reversed. Whose cutting up the concubines now, guys? #fakepitmad

An exiled elf returns to compete for the hand of her love with a troll offering 8265 REALL FOLLOWERS!! #Fakepitmad This pitch relates to the fact that the #pitmad feed was beset by spammers after awhile promising thousands of followers for twitter accounts. I sort of assume that authors I haven’t heard of who have like, 20,000 followers have bought them from these people.

One piece of encouragement I took away from the lack of response to my pitches were some agents’ responses to the pitch madness contests:

Sarah LaPolla ‏@sarahlapolla 12 Sep
I don’t mind things like #pitmad. They can be fun & force you to conceptualize your novel. But a full query + sample pages is always better.

• Jim McCarthy ‏@JimMcCarthy528 12 Sep
I’m always looking for new clients, but I need more than a sentence to gauge interest. Content over concept, people. #pitmad
• Kate McKean ‏@kate_mckean 12 Sep
@JimMcCarthy528 This is exactly why I don’t think these are very helpful events for writers.
12 Sep
@kate_mckean I saw someone tweet that she was giving up on writing today to focus on it and thought BAD CHOICE! BAD CHOICE! #pitmad

My pitch for the original Pitch Madness:

Kathleen Kern
The Price We Paid: My Life with Hoshea Weber and the UPS Underground
Genre: Dystopian Literary
Word Count: 103,000

Political dissident Islam Goldberg-Jones recounts in prison memoir how his infidelities devastated his wife, the iconic activist Shea Weber, as they participated in the struggle to bring down the fascist (U.S.) Christian Republic regime 2065-2086.

I came to God late in life. It was not because I feared hell or longed for heaven. When you finish reading this account, you will understand why I have some anxiety about reunions with the people I’ve loved after I die. Ironically, it was the Christian Republic that in the end made me a believer, when it put me in solitary confinement. By the second year, my sanity had eroded to the point where I thought if I were talking to something besides myself, it meant that I was less crazy. So I began praying, and after about a week of rambling on to some invisible deity (saying essentially the same things I rambled on to myself about), I finally felt a presence in my cell. But it wasn’t God; it was Shea, praying for me, and then her parents, and then all the Wayvers on the outside who had the mistaken belief I was a hero. Sometimes I could almost make out the words, but mostly, I felt those prayers in my chest, breaking the iron bands of fear and depression that made breathing difficult. It would be a while after that before God and I spoke, and I believe that I was ungracious enough to tell him/her that I was much more impressed by feeling the connection to people praying for me than I was with direct contact to the Divine.

Yes, I was angry. Apparently, God decided to work with it.