I am writing this 65 minutes after the email was sent and 10 minutes after I read it to find out that I received another Honorable Mention from the Writers of the Future contest. Writers of the Future is the largest and highest paying free entry science fiction contest and has involved several prominent science fiction authors (among them are Orson Scott Card and Dave Wolverton/Farland). The contest offers unpublished writers an amazing opportunity to have their work recognized and fly them out to LA to attend a weeklong workshop and a black-tie gala. Also from what I’ve heard, no one will ever make as big as fuss as this regarding one of your short stories ever again.
Winning an Honorable Mention is like receiving a gold star – “Yay! Your writing doesn’t suck!” Over 1,000 people submit each quarter and only maybe the top 10% of those submissions receive an Honorable Mention. Then the top 16 submissions receive Semi Finalist, Finalist, and third, second, and first. (At least this is from what I’ve read on blogs – if anyone knows differently, please let me know.) It’s a pretty big deal to receive anything other than a flat-out rejection.
So why did I title this post, “The Honorable Mention Blues”? Well, folks, because I have already received an Honorable Mention and a rejection for two previous submissions, I was dreaming of a steady progress bar that would gently plop me into the Semi-Finalist category. Because life is a line between the x and y axis where 1x equals y. (Joking.) Mostly because this was the same story I submitted and won an Honorable Mention with before. I got the feedback from my writer friends and I did the edits so, man, I really thought it was much stronger this time.
The issue might be that it’s not a standalone. I am writing a short story based on the series universe I created. Not that that kind of story wouldn’t win, but it adds an extra challenge. I have to write a story in a way that will appeal to new readers and (eventually) readers of my series. (Yes, that is presumptuous, but you’ve got to plan ahead on these things.) These future readers of the tremendously popular science fiction series centered on an amazing female protagonist with loads of internal conflict will tear apart (I imagine) any inconsistencies that appear in early side stories. What can I say? Fans are passionate if not unforgiving.
Or this is a copout reason, and the real reason is that I simply have more work to do before my writing reaches Semi Finalist or Finalist quality. This reason hurts a bit more because to write a story, you have to first believe that you have the ability to do it and it won’t suck. Sometimes this process takes a long time, sometimes a very long time, and it’s consequently where I see a lot of aspiring writers run their tires through the mud.
Finally convinced that you have created something worth reading, you must send it to other writers for feedback and make at least some of the changes they suggest to bring the writing to a whole new level. This process can also take a lot of time, and sometimes you’ll get suggestions like, “Delete the entire beginning/half of the story” (I hope you don’t get these suggestions, but it does happen) and so you’ll have to go through an existential crisis of “WHY DID I CHOOSE THIS CAREER MY WRITING SUCKS WAH,” before you can finally get back to editing. Also, a lot of times those suggestions are merely poking at a monster underneath the surface and it’s up to you to figure out how to summon and tackle that monster (probably after a glass of wine and a few breakdowns).
So if you hit a wall, what do you do? I don’t know, folks, but I’ll let you know when I find out next week.
