Essays and Etcetera

On Thursday the list of entrants that advanced to the second round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest was posted on line. I did not make the cut.

This stung. I doubted I would win, I found it likely that I would not make it past the second cut, but I felt pretty certain I would make it past the first cut. On the Amazon forum’s I saw people describing some pretty poor material. (Awful might be another word.)

To be dropped in the first round makes me feel, in some small way, like I am among the dregs. Am I really like those losers, who can’t see bad writing right in front of their nose? Do I really write that bad of a pitch?

Now for the sour grapes:

I was ambivalent about the whole contest. To be out this early in the contest is a blessing in that it makes clear what I certainly won’t be doing in six months–that is, receiving a publishing contract with Penguin. If I had made it into a later round only to then be rejected, I would have been held in suspense longer.

To be dropped in this first round is really not a comment on my novel–the person who rejected the novel never saw it. They merely read a 300 word pitch. The fact that I was rejected could mean I don’t know how to write a pitch, but it is not as stinging as if my entire novel were read, and considered not worthy to advance. And perhaps there was nothing intrinsically wrong with my pitch–it might just be that my ideas are too unique, and don’t follow the standard cliches close enough.

Yes, that is it. I am a misunderstood genius.