Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Close but no cigar. I'm talking Golden Heart over here.

Golden Heart Scoresheets came back yesterday. For those of you who don't know what the Golden Heart is, it's the National Romance Writer's of America writing contest. You enter in your category, send in the first fifty pages and a synopsis, close your eyes and pray.

*And I mean really pray. The scoring instructions are a little whacked. "Score 1-9, using tenth of points." With no rubric! This English teacher is cringing.*

Anyway, the award ceremony is this huge formal event at the national conference in New York City--Have I Mentioned I'm Going to the Conference?!? Eeeeek!

I sent both books from my Crimson Bay Series in. The first one received AMAZING scores. It earned a few "perfect 9's" with a few "eight-and-a-half's" thrown in. But there was one darn "seven" that lowered my score enough so that I didn't final.

The second in the series received great scores, too, though they weren't as high as the first. The average score was a solid "eight" with no "nines" and a couple "high seven's".

Instead of being disappointed that I didn't final, I'm actually pretty excited. Book One did so well! The response was great! The scores are near perfect! How can I be upset about not being a finalist when I really was close? As for Book Two, I'm now going to take some time, go back through it, and look for kinks with a sharp eye. There's got to be places I can smooth things over and amp other things up.

So...close, but no cigar. Great scores...but no final payout.

I also entered the Daphne DuMaurier contest, which has an award's ceremony at the national conference too, and I should be getting the scores back any day now. I'll post something about those as soon as I know. (I've been holding my breath to final in the Daphne since I first heard about it. Daphne DuMaurier is BY FAR my favorite author and Rebecca is BY FAR AND AWAY my favorite book. Hands down. No contest.) To final in her contest would mean soooo much to me. I'll let you know...

Until then I'm writing away on Book Three in the series and going back to edit Book Two a bit more.

Did you enter the Golden Heart? How'd you do?

1 comment:

Monica Bremer said...

Wow! Golden Heart sounds so cool! This contest enhances the skill of every writer! In joining such an event or contest like this, the prize is not the only thing that is important. The experience and lessons you'll learn from this activity count as well.