Close...

…but no cigar.

My contest virgin, Stealing Amy, did okay in its maiden run. When the list of finalists came out (minus my name), I prepared myself for the worst. Mostly because if you’ve been around the writing game long enough, you hear horror stories about judges making comments like: “don’t ever write again.” Well, I knew it wouldn’t be that bad, but still…

Anyway, yesterday I received my entry back and discovered I’d placed in the top five. Whoopee!! I’ll take that!

In fact, both judges gave me 146 out of a possible 150. Not bad!

The way it works is, the judges are given a score sheet with categories like mechanics, characterization, set-up, etc. Within those categories there are usually five areas for which the judge is asked to give you a score between 1 and 5 (1 being "needs a ton of work", 5 being "ready-for-publishing").

It was so cool to see all those 5’s!! (And, if you do the math, you’ll realize that in only four places did I get a 4.)

One judge provided a great deal of thoughtful feedback and both mentioned they wished they could have warmed up to my heroine a little more. Valuable information, no?

Ack. So, of course, last month I totally rewrote the opening to the first chapter. Maybe I should have left it the way it was.