Nope, didn't final in the Golden Heart. My goal all along has been to do better than last year's scores. Guess I'll find out in a couple of months whether I achieved that.
Am I disappointed? Sure, some. But not suprised. I get such a mixed bag of feedback on all of the contests I enter--usually one or two judges love it to death, and at least one thinks its utterly crap.
I'm kind of noticing that the contest circuit is a bit of a crap shoot. The feedback from most contests is great, but there's no guarantee that the same manuscript will be judged the same from one judge to the next, or one contest to the next. I've heard of manuscripts that win with perfect scores in one lineup score only middle of the road in the next.
And judging this year shows it too. I scored one Golden Heart manuscript fairly high (high 8's out of 9). It didn't final. Either all the finalists were pretty much perfect (which is possible...they don't release the finalists' scores, so we don't know how many 9's and 8's they actually receive), or taste varies widely among the judges.
So, how did I celebrate my non-remarkable afternoon? With leftover birthday cake and about 400 new words on my current work in progress. That's a pitiful amount for me, but I fully admit that I was having attention trouble :)
Congrats to the finalists!
2 comments:
Commenting on my own post :) Re-reading this its sound a little like sour grapes. That wasn't my intent. It was more of me seeing one of the inherent truths about the contests: That the winners deserve to win. However, not winning does not mean a manuscript was not great.
Since there is human judgement involved here, there is a random component to the scoring for any contest. And sometimes it takes a bit of luck to get your words in front of folks who are in the right mindset to appreciate them.
I don't begrudge the finalists one bit, because they not only wrote killer entries, but lucked into judges who could appreciate just how killer they were.
Love that you commented on your own post :) ~ I agree that luck plays some part in contests. This business is very subjective and what one person loves, another person doesn't care for. I think there are probably tons of published authors who never won a contest. And lots of winning writers who are still hoping to get published.
I'm thrilled for the finalists - two are friends of mine and I hope they win!!!
Happy writing, Kristi! Enjoy the journey, and with so many wonderful ideas and stories you're working on, I've no doubt one day I'll get to buy one!
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