"Hello, my name is Lynda, and I am a contest-a-holic."
For many of us, myself included, the lure of RWA-chapter writing contests beckons like a Hershey's Kiss to the chocolate starved. The opportunity to win, or place, or just receive positive comments from the judges is often irresistible, and the fact that we must often wait years for editorial feedback, makes the instant gratification aspect of contests well worth it.
If the contest route is one you've mapped into your publication itinerary, here's a twelve-step program to make sure you come out alive:
Step 1. Don't make a career out of contests. Keep them in perspective, or they can damage the progression of your career. Contests or not, the goal remains publication. If you become so preoccupied by contests that you polish and re-polish the same three chapters ad nauseam, you're doing yourself a disservice. Enter contests if you have reached the point in your career that you KNOW can finish a whole book without them.
Step 2. How thick is your skin? If you can't take constructive criticism without getting your hackles up, or if rejection and setbacks throw you into a whirlpool of self-doubt and depression, contests may not be as beneficial to you. Contests are subjective, and judges' skill levels and tastes vary greatly. Like several police academy instructors told me, if you get in a knife fight, win or lose, you WILL get cut. I've been fortunate to do well in contests, but I've also been slammed. Trust yourself enough to take the helpful advice and weed out the detrimental, which is VITAL if you want to enter contests successfully.
Step 3. Decide what you want out of a contest before entering. Contests can quickly become an expensive habit, so you have to pick and choose. Do you want to test your hook? Enter a first 10-pages contest. Prepare a partial for submission? Look for one that judges the first 55 pages and a synopsis. Looking for a free ride to the National Conference? Several contests offer the full registration fee as a prize, find them. Want your chapters before a certain editor's eyes? Check out who's judging before writing that $25 check.
Step 4. Don't set yourself up to lose points for missing stupid details. Face it, contests aren't the real world. Though an editor won't care if you have 28 instead of 25 lines per page (trust me), some judges are picky. Make a checklist of all the details and double check them before sealing your entry envelope.
Step 5. Keep writing while waiting for contest results. Refer to step one.
Step 6. Know when it's time to "retire" a project from contests. I've heard editors say, contest wins/places are great, but when they see one project that has been in 300 contests (exaggeration), they tend to think the writer has her priorities skewed. Refer to step one again. Ahem.
Step 7. Look for trends in judges' comments. Don't change your project based on one person's thoughts, but if five different people suggest you shred your prologue, no matter how much you love it, think about shredding it.
Step 8. If a judge's comments are mean, you have permission to throw them away and forget them. Most judges are fair and honest, even if we don't agree with them. If someone's just plain nasty, ignore them.
Step 9. Let your judged entry cool. After you read the judges' comments, set that entry aside until you don't feel any kind of emotions about it. Then, go through it again, and highlight all the great things they wrote with one color highlighter, and all the constructive comments you agree with in another. DON'T get caught up in the number score.
Step 10. Revel in your contest wins/places. BUT, let them propel you forward, not toss you into a contest-addicted frenzy that will keep you from submitting your work to a publisher. Refer to step one. Have I mentioned that before?
Step 11. Always remind yourself that contests involve a great deal of luck, and be kind to yourself. I know full well that if I entered my 1997 GH finalist book in the GH again, it might earn itself a string of twos. THAT IS PART OF THE GAME! Many good books don't final, but they still go on to sell. Which brings me to our 12th step.
Step 12. DON'T MAKE A CAREER OUT OF CONTESTS. Use them as a stepping stone, a intermediate goal toward publication, a break. Who knows--you might be judged by an editor who loves and ultimately BUYS your work. And, that's the whole point, right? Refer to step one. Always.
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