Thursday, July 22, 2010

Put Yourself Out There!

Good morning! Don't you just love Thursday? Today the final top three winners were announced in the line-by-line contest! Congrats, ladies( +me! Yay!)! I've participated in a few contests in the past and whether I've placed in them or not, it's always been a great learning experience. It's fun to read the work of so many people we know from the blogging/writing community. The feedback on not only your work, but their's as well, is priceless.

But with contests, like anything in the writing world, you need to wear thick skin. Sometimes comments can sting, even from complete strangers. As writers we need to keep an open mind and accept criticism. It's the only way to get better. Well, that, a lot of practice and gallons of ice cream.

So long as you can take the negative comments along with the positive, contests are a GREAT morale booster. Even if one person flat out tells you your writing sucks, ten other people will tell you what they like and what you could improve.

I know a lot of people don't enter contests because they're hesitant to have strangers reading their work. After all, anyone could steal it! But I think most writers are good people and 250 words or less isn't enough of a glimpse into your awesome plot--you won't even get to the space monkeys. So go ahead and put yourself out there!
And if not that's okay too.

I may or may not have a follow up post to this in a few weeks. We shall see!
Happy Thursday!

13 comments:

  1. Nice point LJ, thanks for sharing. I also saw that you won runner up or something like that in that pitch contest, so congrats!

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  2. I'm so excited that your entry was one of the winners! The excerpt left me totally intrigued. Congrats!

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  3. Lacey, your entry had many of us from the onset. Vivid, unique, and strongly crafted, you shared a true gift with everyone. Your attitude about the contest is terrific. Martina and I consider ourselves to be the lucky ones to have had such awesome entries on our site and open-minded authors participating. Congrats on your big win!!!!!

    xo
    Marissa

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  4. Yeah girl! You deserve it! (I think we're contest sisters since we keep entering the same ones,lol)

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  5. Anna, thank you! :-)

    Marissa, thank you for that and for hosting. You guys are so supportive. We <3 you.

    Candy, contest sisters *high five*!

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  6. Congrats on being one of the runners up L.J.
    Great post too. :)

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  7. personally, i think you're taking this win far, far too calmly.

    yes, we all appreciate a gracious winner and yes, we all would want our efforts to be acknowledged if we didn't win.

    however: YOU WON!!!

    please do a happy dance for us so we can share in the joy! (we all want to win something like this and we really would like to help you celebrate)

    also, that last sentence? great, great sentence.

    ...

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  8. Lacey-congrats again!!! You're right that putting yourself out there can be hard but the potential rewards are so worth it! :)

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  9. Tom, trust me, I've been happy dancing like a lunatic all morning. I think I've typed *squee* like ten times.
    HUGE morale booster. And you're such an awesome supporter, even though you've only read five lines of my book. Want you to know I TOTALLY appreciate it. You've made me smile with every comment you've made.

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  10. Grats Lacey! You totally deserve it! :)

    Angela @ The Bookshelf Muse

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  11. Hurrah for the contest wins! (and LOVE that comic...some days, crits are just like that...)

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