Wednesday, April 26, 2006

This is Your Brain on Contests

"Books aren't written--they're rewritten. Including your own. It is one of the hardest things to accept, especially after the seventh rewrite hasn't quite done it." - Michael Crichton

The results for the last contest I entered are due at any moment and I can't seem to concentrate on anything else. Will they like Maynard? Are my first couple of chapters strong or weak? Will they notice those blasted typos that I found about five minutes after I mailed the entry out?

I already have my next contest chosen -- it has two final judges (editor and agent) and doesn't require a synopsis (I know, I know, I need to get over that but my current synopsis on Camilla is about 20 pages long and I still don't have it finished -- uh, maybe because the book isn't finished), but I'm waiting to see what these guys have to say. Mostly about Maynard, but about the other stuff, too.

I'm having a terrible time trying to stay focused on my editing. Maass is helping, I think, although he may be a better help on my next WIP so that it'll be in better shape from the get-go and not need quite as much fixing. Am I dreaming?

In any case, I need to stop looking at the red letters on my calendar ("Contest Results due by EOM") and focus, focus, focus.

And, worse, the nice weather isn't helping any. Ugh.

3 comments:

Ceri Hebert said...

I would love to enter WORL in a contest, but I've heard that I'm in No Man's Land as far as contests go. Even though it hasn't reached that stage I guess I'm published, but according to many, not by a "recognized" publisher, so I cant enter the contests for published authors. Yet I'm not an unpublished author either. They'll have to start a catagory just for me,.

Good luck to you!! Can't wait to hear how it went!!

snmzklco HUH?

Judy said...

Ceri, I know what you mean. I made the mistake of going with a "strongly not recommended" publisher (P&E) for my first book. Unfortunately, I didn't know about that until AFTER I had signed the contract. Of course, I was one of the first to sign with them, so I don't think P&E was against them at the time. Sigh... oh, well. Live and learn.

I'm still here, catching moments on the computer as I can.... and reading email. I'm really hoping we can get ourselves a routine set up that will allow me some writing time. We're working on it.

Next week we will be down in Florida closing on our place there. I'm taking my son's old computer so hopefully I can keep up with things. I have to get it out and clean some junk off it, I'm sure.

Good luck on the contest! I'm keeping my fingers crossed for Maynard :-)

MJFredrick said...

I completely sympathize. Good luck!