How I Got Into Author Mentor Match (And How I Mentally Processed It)

I have some exciting news: I am officially an Author Mentor Match mentee!

What is Author Mentor Match? According to their website: “Author Mentor Match (AMM) pairs aspiring writers with completed manuscripts with experienced authors for mentorship.”

In other words, I get personalized help on my manuscript from an experienced and talented author, and I was lucky enough to get selected by Paris Wynters on my ’90s nostalgic adult sci-fi: TTYL.

Here’s a snippet:

Ashley Hill sells old ‘90s toys and repairs retro game systems to rekindle the magic of her childhood, back when life was perfect. Aka: back when her sister was alive. So, when she finds her old virtual reality console in her basement and realizes it houses a realistic world modified by her tech-genius sister, she doesn’t hesitate to resurrect her sister’s avatar—with her AI fully intact.

As Ashley explores the perfect, nostalgia-filled reality while reconnecting with her virtual sibling, she has no reason to live her life outside of VR. Well, other than the fact that the tech is mind-blowingly unfathomable, but ignorance is bliss when you have everything you want. Unfortunately, three modern-looking men in black appear in her virtual utopia, demanding Ashley give up the console. 

Ashley is forced to discover the origin of the modded console (while refusing to ask her sister and break the illusion of paradise), as the hacker infiltrates the system and alters her mind, making it difficult to differentiate reality and the virtual world. When they start to hurt her friends and family in the real world, Ashley has to decide: hand over the console to a hacker with mind-bending intentions or destroy the technology—and lose her sister forever.

This isn’t the first mentorship contest I entered, or the first book I wrote. I entered my first book into Pitch Wars (RIP), AMM, and RevPit. It got a full request during RevPit, and I got some great personalized feedback, but other than that… crickets. I also queried it about 100 times, and… more crickets.

Safe to say, I lost hope pretty quick.

The definition of hope is a feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen.

I stopped expecting a full request. I stopped exciting to get into contests. It was easier that way. There were no disappointments. In the words of MJ from Spiderman: No Way Home: “If you expect disappointment, then you can never really be disappointed.”

Still, I moved on, and wrote a whole other book. One that’s inspired by my childhood passions, from retro games to Tamagotchis to comic books. And let me tell you, it’s been FUN to dive into the past!

I wrote the first draft during NaNoWriMo in 2020, but I had a goal for it. I wanted it to be ready to submit to Pitch Wars in September. These mentorship contests are GREAT for making your own deadlines. It forced me to pick up a messy draft and edit it throughout the summer. Thanks to planning ahead, I submitted it to four Pitch Wars mentors (and continued editing because… editing is NEVER finished). To my absolute surprise, within a few days, I got a request for the full manuscript. Then ANOTHER request. Then ANOTHER one! Three out of four were great odds, but I tried to not get my hopes up.

The announcement window came up, anddddd… I didn’t get selected. Sad, sure, but I was only sad for about a day (I guess hopelessness has a time and a place sometimes).

But all three mentors reached out to me to give me personalized feedback, because they are absolute ROCKSTARS. They don’t have to do that, but they did, all three of them! One of them even gave me a full edit letter, and told me I was their next choice. I’m still debating if that makes me feel better or worse, hah!

So, I took their feedback, and tackled some edits, but this time, with AMM as my deadline. I only had a couple months, but I did it. I finished up some pacing issues and sent it off. Choosing mentors to submit to is hard, since you can only pick four. But I read through all of their wishlists, mentor styles, and did a bit of Twitter research to determine who would be the best fit to submit to. This was difficult, because everyone seemed so awesome and knowledgeable.

Within less than 24 hours, I got a full request. Again, my mind was blown, but I didn’t get my hopes up. I distracted myself with video games, television, and puzzles, forcing myself to take a mini-break from writing, since I’ve been editing pretty much non-stop (but that didn’t stop me from checking the #AMMTeasers hashtag more than I should have).

I waited for “the first week of February” to hear the announcements of the selected mentees. There was some back and forth of WHEN they would be announced… “February 3rd” was the first rumor. Then “February 4^th”, then that turned into, “No, a couple of days”.

And let me tell you, the AMM Hopefuls Discord was BUZZING. We were like Sherlock Holmes, analyzing every AMM tweet and Instagram story to figure out when they were going to make the announcements. It wasn’t just a matter of knowing who made it in, no, we were on a whole new mission to figure out when the announcements were going to drop.

Then on a blustery, icy Friday afternoon, a member of the discord group got an acceptance email.

Then another.

Then another.

And I’m sitting there, in my oversized beanbag chair, watching my fellow writers make their announcements. Okay, NOW my heart was pounding.

I opened my own email. Refreshed it. And there it was. An email from AMM, congratulating me on being selected by Paris Wynters.

I wasn’t sure WHAT I was supposed to do at that moment. Jump up and down, screaming? Blurt it to my husband, who was sitting mere feet away from me?

Well, y’all, this is where my hopelessness failed me, because I was STILL in the “nope, nothing to get excited about mindset” for a hot second. I stared at my phone until the excitement and reality hit me. I was SELECTED.

Someone else loved my story as much as I did and wanted to work with me on it. That’s when I finally got up, showed the email to my husband, blasted ’90s music, and ran up and down my hallway yelling “I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH MY BODY”. Let me tell you, this lasted for about two hours.

Since being selected, I’ve brainstormed with Paris on all the possibilities of my story, and how to make it deeper and stronger. She’s given me homework assignments, and I have never been more excited to do homework in my life. That’s when you know you’re excited about something. I’m ready to take the time needed to make my MS shine.

I know AMM isn’t a ticket to getting published, and part of me is still saying “don’t get your hopes up”, but I’m looking at it differently.

I’m EXCITED about making my MS the best it can be.

I’m EXCITED to have someone enthusiastic and knowledgeable to help me.

I’m EXCITED to learn new things to be a better writer for this book, and future books.

I’m not thinking, “This is my big break!!” because I can’t control that. But I can control how good of a book I write, and the passion and effort I put into it. And this can apply to getting great beta feedback, or a feedback friend who loves your story, or submitting to AMM in the first place. We deserve to get excited about every step in our writing journey, even if it’s not the big prize of getting published. The joy is in the journey, as they say.

So in this difficult industry riddled with rejection, it’s important to find something to get you excited. Little wins. Little accomplishments. And maybe, it’s not terrible to have just a little bit of hope.