So I finally got an email from the Writers of the Future contest. It reads:
Dear Entrant,
Your story has now been judged and did not win or place in the 1st quarter. Even though you have never had to wait for results in order to submit for the next quarter, this hopefully gives you incentive to submit again. The more often you enter, the better chance you have of winning, and improving your skills.
I do urge you to join our forum if you have not already, or subscribe to our judge, David Farland’s newsletter. Lots of great tips at both locations to help you.
I do hope you are already working on that next story and do let me know that you did get this e-mail.
Best regards,
Joni Labaqui
I’m not going to lie: it’s a pretty disappointing way to end an 8+ month wait. But when you’re a writer, rejection is just a normal part of the business. I was hoping to get at least an honorable mention, but oh well.
Stories are fundamentally subjective: what might work really well for one reader might not for another. The important thing is to write the best stories that you can, and to send them out into the world until they grow into their audience. I still feel confident that Star Wanderers represents some of my best work to date, so I plan to make it available as soon as I can.
I’m flying back to the States on Friday, but Part I is already edited and formatted, so I’ll probably publish it over the weekend. In the meantime, I’ll finish the first draft of the complete novel somewhere between Tbilisi and New York. That’s one good thing about the long wait–it helped me to finish the story and work out some of the kinks before publishing it.
So yeah, the WOTF rejection is a bit of a setback, but at the same time, it’s also quite liberating. All I really wanted was to get this story out to the readers, and now I can finally do that! If you like my other stories, I think this is one you’re really going to enjoy.
Expect to hear more about it soon!
