So first, the contest I entered last month. Yeah, I lost. (Are you surprised? Shoot. I think I set this up backwards, didn't I?) And I'm sad. Not surprised, which kind of sucks because it would be nice to have that "I'm awesome and am totally rockin' it" feeling (it does show up every so often, thank goodness, but why so many empty days in between?). But guess what? Oh well. I am going to be like Stephen King and add the loss to an ever-growing pile of misses on my wall (it's actually a manilla envelope in a drawer, but still. You get the point.) After all, I put myself out there. That's what we writers do, right? All the time? Over and over again?
Now for the second contest -- it was actually a random contest to will a full critique. Which I REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY want/need/am desperate for. Lucky for my ego, being as both contest results were announced today, it truly was random. Take a picture of Natalie's friend Kiersten's recently released book, Paranormalcy, "In the Wild", and you will be entered into the critique contest. Judging not based on the actual picture, just a random draw, with the opportunity to have some fun and take a pic, to boot.
Neat. Quick. Simple.
I didn't win.
BUT. Natalie did put my picture on the announcement post, which gave me a smile (and I really needed that). According to her post, "there were a lot" of entries. So I'm going to use my imagination here and say that there were hundreds, thousands of entries, and mine was one of the few she chose to share with everyone.
Want to see it? Here you go. Natalie's blog post with Jessica's picture of Paranormalcy makin' raisins.
See? There *is* always a silver lining. It may be a thin, practically transparent lining; not a thick, fuzzy and bright one, but it's there.
Now excuse me while I go find more contests to lose.
