Thanks to a cold, I've been feeling down all week-end. Not the best frame of mind to pick up the May issue of Essentials magazine to discover that I didn't win their writing contest. In fact, I didn't even make runner-up.
Part of me is saying "Cheer up; at least you made the top 20 shortlist." That same part reasons that it's only a short story of 1,500 words and maybe short stories just aren't my thing.
A rather louder voice in my head is saying that maybe my writing is just crap and there are many others who write better than I do. I've consumed rather a lot of Haagen-Dasz Belgian chocolate ice cream in an attempt to silence that voice. Lucky for me, the ice cream is working.
On the plus side, my company has bought me a brand new laptop to work on. It's very nice but I can't get too comfortable yet as one of the bosses is now toying with taking this new one and letting me have hers. In the meantime, I've taken Jackie's advice and started re-reading my manuscript. And she was so right - I'm rediscovering my passion for it. Though the new story is burning to be told, I've written a rough synopsis for it and gone back to the WIP. So far I have 6 chapters I'm pretty happy with, three of which I've circulated to my crit group. I plan to keep on editing in the hopes that as I go along I'll see clearly how to tie up the ending.
Now more than ever, with this fresh rejection pushing me, I want to finish this manuscript and send it off to the RNA. I need a fresh and objective opinion to tell me if the voice in my head is right or wrong.
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