Pitch Up – and throw up?!

I still don’t quite believe I’m typing this, but you know that competition I entered on Sunday? The one where writers could win the chance to publicly humiliate themselves in front of BAFTA, the BBC, C4, Tiger Aspect and a room full of other writers? The one which I didn’t think my entry had been accepted into?

Well luckily (or not, as the case may prove to be), I wrote a polite follow-up email on Tuesday, gently enquiring whether my entry had been accepted, given that I had not yet been asked to pay the fee. There had been some form of kerfuffle. I was sent a Paypal link and asked to pay it, like, straight away, because the entries had been like handed over to the judges. I paid. I emailed. The email bounced. I emailed again. I then cannot describe the surprise shock when, less than hour later, I got an email like this:

From: Tom S
Subject: Pitch Up – Congratulations

Dear Pitcher

I’m delighted to inform you that you have been selected as one of 10
very lucky winners of Pitch Up and will be pitching live to our
exclusive panel at BAFTA, 195 Piccadilly on 26th July.

You will receive between 5-10 minutes of time to pitch and receive
feedback. Pitches will be solely verbal.

If you could aim to be there for 6.30pm for an initial briefing that
would be great.

Please email me back as soon as possible to acknowledge that you’ve
received this email and that you are able to pitch on the night.

In addition, you can bring one guest to the event so please let me
know a name to put on the list.

Congratulations again

Tom S

To which I obviously replied like this:

On 7 July 2010 17:07, Adele Kirby wrote:
Hi Tom

ARE YOU SERIOUS? I can’t quite believe the email below so just had to check you didn’t accidentally send this to, like, everyone, to accidentally (or purposefully) mess with our heads….?!

Cheers
Adele

To which Tom replied like this:

From: Tom S

Subject: Re: Pitch Up – Congratulations
To: “Adele Kirby”

You did submit the female detective series idea – right?

To which I replied:

On 7 July 2010 17:21, Adele Kirby  wrote:
Yup, that’s one of my babies.

But you know how it is. You enter these things, you always think you’ve got something awesome, but it’s usually radio silence from that point.

Wow. Er.

Yes, I’ll be there – yes, I’ll have a friend, but it could be tricky working out WHICH ONE. So I’ll get back to you on that.

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!

(I’ll just go and shake in the corner for half an hour)

Cheers
Adele

To which he said:

From: Tom S
Subject: Re: Pitch Up – Congratulations
To: “Adele Kirby”

At which point I immediately told everyone I knew (in particular those fine folk who I was emailing back and forth with between sessions at 3Ness), then curled up in the corner in a small ball to shake, and then realised that I had to go and launch Body Combat 44, for which I had lost the notes yesterday somewhere in Westfield. I was, as you can imagine, a little distracted, which made for a highly creative (and not necessarily in a good way) launch. I guess everything can’t all go right at once.

Hang on – right? I am to be publicly humiliated in less than three weeks.

Hang on – better arrange the night off first, eh?

Tags: Pitch Up, Script Writing, Sheer terror, Writing