A week ago, I thought Brimstone was the best writing I have done so far in my career. This morning I deduced I must have lost my mind when I issued that statement because it's crap. Okay, not crap, but when you start to look at your writing with a critical eye, the eye that knows it's being sent out and judged by someone other than yourself, possibly even an agent and editor, suddenly that eye starts picking up all kinds of things you hadn't noticed before.Like the lack of varied sentence length. Or how many times you used the word 'seemed'. Or how you sort of forgot one mouthy character had suddenly stopped talking when, given their character, they shouldn't have. And you notice the ticking of the clock again, and how much--or rather how little--time you have left before this submission has to be in the mail in order to reach the contest coordinator before the deadline of October 4th. Which leaves only one day left to fix all the mistakes you realize you made.
The Good: It can be fixed.
The Bad: There's only one day to fix it in.
The Ugly: Most of that one day is eaten up by the day job which has been incredibly busy of late and shows no sign of easing up.
Crap.
4 comments:
We also have a tendency to get super-sensitive to our work before we send it out to the contests. Chances are, it's probably a lot better than you think at this point. I wouldn't sweat it too much - send it off and see what kind of feedback you get. :-)
Wouldn't it be great not to have to worry with the day job? Anyway, hang in there and send it off. I always find errors in stuff I've submitted long after I sent it in!
Just do the best you can. Contest judges, although they point out little things, are mainly concerned about the big picture, i.e., the story.
You'll get there and it will be a great contest entry. Best of luck to you!
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