I lost the contest.
A subtitle to this blog entry should be Contests I. (Another note for newbie writers—no subtitles).
In 2007, The Wild Rose Press ran a contest for time travel stories, the winners to be published. They also promised a free critique.
Free critique! Yes! But when you don't pay for the contest, you have to write a story to the contest's specifications. So I wrote a time travel story.
As stated above, I didn't win. Looking back, of course I didn't win. I didn't even know what POV (Point of View) was when I wrote the story. I'm lucky they didn't take one look and send back a form letter saying thanks, but no thanks.
What they did send was a different form letter, saying they liked the story and would reconsider if I removed the contest-specific details.
Well, by that time I'd found out what POV was, courtesy of the Roses Self-Editing Workshop (http://www.rosescoloredglasses.com/Online%20Workshops.htm). Good course, and the Roses are NOT paying me for this plug.
I rewrote the story and resubmitted. The story returned with the instruction that the hero and heroines needed more physical reactions to the situation. I went to Joanna Waugh's website and her Body Language Cues to Emotion (http://www.joannawaugh.com/Craft.html). Joanna has a great website, full of lots of information for Regency readers and writers, and again, she did NOT pay me for the plug.
I rewrote and resubmitted. And two months later, the editor replied saying she wanted to contract my novella, Lady of the Stars.
Ah, an HEA (Happily Ever After). Exactly what romance is.
Thank you all,
Linda
3 comments:
Congratulations Linda! I have a friend who is published by Wild Rose and she loves them.
Thanks, Elizabeth.
Your blog, Scandalous Women, is great. I don't know how you manage to find all that great information.
Hi Linda! This is a nice post. And a couple of good 'how to' contacts for writers too. You're doing it! Good Luck. Yeah, I said that before, but I mean it.
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