This morning I got an e-mail that said one of my stories got Honorable Mention in the Writers of the Future Contest. And at first I wasn't real excited. I didn't know if everyone got honorable mentions, like participation trophies. Plus it's sponsored by L. Ron Hubbard. But legitimate authors have come out of this contest, like Jim C. Hines, so it's not like this is bupkiss. And they didn't ask for money for this certificate.
Then I came across this bit of reasearch that says that 5% - 15% of the entries get honorable mentions (depending on number of entries that quarter. This makes me feel pretty good. On the one hand, no publishing credit, and I'm not sure if it's worth putting on my query letters. But 5 - 15 % means I'm between numbers 9-10 of this breakdown of "manuscript's chance of being published".
I've got to get up to 98% before I'm "publishable", but it's awesome that I'm passed all the technical foilbles like sentence and paragraph construction, and functioning plot. Basically, I need to work on my ideas and execution, and making sure they both gel.
So yes, I will write back and say that I want my Honorable Mention certificate. Maybe I'll frame it and hang it on the wall. It'd be nice to have some token of my writing prowess somewhere.Labels: contests, getting published
