Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm. -- Winston Churchill
Okay, now that I've had the night to get over not finalling in the contest I entered, I'm feeling better. I also read that article in the latest RWR about persistence and that helped.
That article also pointed out something: that every book you write may not be publishable. That they may just be for learning and practicing your craft. I think that may be true of Playing House and maybe even for Camilla. We'll have to see how it goes.
In the last contest I finalled in, the first round judges loved my entry, but the Harlequin editor hated it. That got me to thinking about whether editors are really in touch with what people want to read. I'm not saying what I wrote was perfect, but I found it interesting that I got unbelievably high marks from three readers and then flopped with the editor.
I'm just hoping that the feedback on my entry is good and constructive. And I'll be interested in seeing what my scores were -- whether I was at least close, or flopped badly.
By the way, has anyone else realized that this year is almost half over? We're in the fifth month! Wasn't it just Christmas? Where the heck does the time go?
Okay, I'm going to go work on the character profiles for the next book for now and putter through some more of the Maass book for Camilla. Onward and upward. Right?
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2 comments:
I don't get it either. Reminds me of a rejection letter I got from Woman's World. My story, which I thought was awesome and would really be identifiable with tons of women in this day and age actually made it to the head fiction editor there. She wrote me a personal R saying that while the story was really good and moving SHE didn't like it enough to publish it. She implied that others would like it, so isn't that the aim? Make the readers happy?
Never give up on your manuscripts!! Use me as an example. It took me over 20 years to write Finally Home. I put it away on several occasions, but I never gave up on it, even when Silhouette didn't want it. Now its going to be published, just when I was about ready to ditch it. It was a great learning experience (it saw most of my growing pains as a writer).
So you keep working on those stories!
oxnpslh- nope, just don't have the energy
I wonder often if the editors are out of touch - I've got books that final pretty consistently, but never get past the first editor who sees it.
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