How is it that it took me the better part of a week to enter an online novel writing contest?<\/p>\n
You have to understand that the manuscript is ready to go; I didn\u2019t have to complete, revise or polish it in order to submit it.\u00a0 I\u2019d already honed my synopsis, pitch and bio.\u00a0 And I wasn\u2019t psychologically blocked (i.e., unduly preoccupied about my chances)\u2014with 5,000 entries, the contest is so competitive that it would be silly to worry about winning.<\/p>\n
So why the ordeal just to hit \u201csend\u201d?<\/p>\n
Well, my synopsis and pitch, both the right length for queries to literary agents, were too long for the contest.\u00a0 Forget fudging with font size to give the appearance of compliance; the contest\u2019s software automatically counts the words and rejects even slightly bloated entries right off the bat.<\/p>\n
Okay, so cut the materials down, you say.\u00a0 Yes, but where?\u00a0 My synopsis, which had evolved over literally a period of months, was lean and mean and, I felt, letter-perfect at 423 words.\u00a0 And I\u2019d worked hard to make the pitch topical and punchy enough to be put on the back cover\u2014just in case I ever get<\/em> a back cover.<\/p>\n Okay, so create a new synopsis and pitch, you say.<\/p>\n Right.\u00a0 That\u2019s what took me a week.<\/p>\n Where do we get the idea that people who excel at\u2014and enjoy\u2014a particular activity can therefore do it easily?\u00a0 For me, writing is great fun, and I especially love the fact that there\u2019s always a solution, a way to fix things.\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t mean I find writing quick or painless.\u00a0 A tricky e-mail can confound me for days; helping a friend draft a cover letter can seem like a big commitment.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s hard for me to take in stride a statement like \u201cIn the first round, your entry will be judged on your pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n Of course I can descend into self-doubt about all this (a Real Writer would enter a contest a week! produce a novel a year! churn out a column a day!<\/em>).\u00a0 But I also know that for most people, contest entry materials and resumes and college applications are pretty daunting.\u00a0 Maybe in a way, these things are even more of a challenge for writers; we grasp all too well the impact of our choices, from word selection to tone to topic.<\/p>\n Still, why sweat a contest?\u00a0 It\u2019s small stuff, especially given the odds, right?\u00a0 Well, I spent years imagining, writing, re-imagining, revising and editing this manuscript, consulting with a dozen readers along the way including a professional editor, and integrating all the relevant feedback through literally half a dozen drafts.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t about to do a half-baked job describing the product of my efforts.\u00a0 I just couldn\u2019t.<\/p>\n In other areas of my life, I\u2019m trying to challenge my own tendency toward perfectionism, which has been known to wreak havoc on my sense of well-being.\u00a0 With my writing, though, it comes in handy to have a natural inclination toward overdrive.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t want my contest entry to be good enough; I wanted it to sing.\u00a0 And if it took me \u201ctoo long\u201d to meet that goal\u2014well, maybe the mistake there was in equating high gear with instant accomplishment.<\/p>\n Meanwhile\u2014wouldn\u2019t you know it\u2014I\u2019ve been having a devil of a time with this very column.\u00a0 It\u2019s just been unusually hard to nail down these 600 words.\u00a0 You probably think I\u2019m kidding, but I really did almost miss the deadline.<\/p>\n Published in the Piedmont Post<\/em>, February 17, 2010<\/p>\n Note: my recent entry “How to Amass a Record Collection” generated a thoughtful, well-written\u00a0response which is now posted as a comment underneath that entry.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How is it that it took me the better part of a week to enter an online novel writing contest? You have to understand that the manuscript is ready to go; I didn\u2019t have to complete, revise or polish it in order to submit it.\u00a0 I\u2019d already honed my synopsis, pitch and bio.\u00a0 And I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[54],"yoast_head":"\n