I entered a writing contest today!

On October 31 I wrote this blog post, but because of  my review of  Jan Coates’ book, A Hare in the Elephant’s Trunk, followed by our interview and the book giveaway – I decided to wait until a winner was chosen. Now that the wait is over — and I’m anticipating the winner’s reply — here is that post.

Today I submitted a story into a writing contest.  *gulp*

The requirements are that it – rhyme, be no more than 300 words, and – along with some other writing specifications – would appeal to a child.  So I dug out my rhyming story that I had asked my critique group to give their opinions on a few months ago, and seriously tackled the comments and advice. Then I posted it for critique again, tweaked a few little things, and prepared it for submission. Oh my…

I chose to submit it online, and it’s a good thing I did because October 31 is the deadline, which is .. um .. today! How long it took me to hit ‘send’ I’m not sure. I sat here barely breathing. I checked to see if my heart was still beating. I checked my story over a few more times to be sure it was set up the way the judges requested, then I stopped breathing, started stressing, and .. hit the submit button.  Yikes!

Omigosh! It’s gone now, so if I missed anything it’s too late now! The waiting has begun. Today will end and the judges will begin reading and judging every entry that meets their requirements. I wonder how many will they receive? I wonder how many will they toss out? I wonder how difficult will it be for them to choose five winners?  

Winners, what a nice word — especially if I am one! Five .. winners. First place winner is awarded a nice cash prize and his/her story will be published in the writers’ newsletter that is read by editors and publishers. (yummy possibilities there.) Second place winner receives a smaller cash prize. Third, fourth and fifth place winners each get a smaller still case prize. All five will be given a certificate, as well.

Would I like to win? But of course! Does it matter which one? umm .. if not first then I guess it doesn’t matter as much which place, does it? But I’m not kidding myself about the possibilities. I know the competition is tough, there are incredible writers out there. My writing is probably quite simplistic in comparison but I still have a chance, actually five chances in this instance. So, I won’t give up hoping.

By mid-February the winners will be notified, in March they will be announced in the next issue. Yes, I will be disappointed if I don’t place, but if my story doesn’t win in this contest I have it ready to go out again.

For now, this experience has made good blogging material. 🙂

A PostScript to this story is that last week an email notification arrived thanking me for my entry. Of course, my heart did a flip-flop just to hear anything from them. How silly is that?

I’ll let you know what happens.

How do you handle the waiting? What do you do to keep from stressing over it?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂