IWSG Wednesday

IWSG GROUP

Please thank our awesome co-hosts for this month, Stephen Tremp, Karen Walker, Denise Covey, and Tyrean Martinson
Co-hosts are wonderful beings who enjoy helping make this blog "hop" a success, so make sure you visit and thank them for all that they do, as well as our Ninja Captain, Alex himself...





For this month’s IWSG post, I have some introspection I’d like share. What does it mean to win an award? How many writing awards are out there and is there a list of those who “count/matter” and those who don’t?

I don’t know. I just know what it feels like to (finally!) win one! A Royal Palm Literary Award, first place in mystery, from the Florida Writers Association's annual competition. To win a contest where no one who knows me is amazing. That my work was judged by no one who has anything to gain by liking what I wrote, that's a wow. I love this feeling about winning an award.

On the other hand, I made the mistake, perhaps, of reading the rubrics (I should have waited until I wasn’t working on the current WIP) from the judges who commented on the other novel I entered that did not win. Depressing. Not because they were mean. Contrarily, they were professional about what they said and I could see truth in some of the comments, which made me feel terrible.

However, “it’s too late to turn back now.” What I learned from this is that I may not be able to go back and change what is already out there, but I can learn from what I did and did not do and make this next novel that much better. I’ve decided to take that route and get over my pity party, as soon as I can, which probably won’t be for another few days. I know myself. I need to grieve and dwell. Then I can move on.

How do you handle criticism, no matter how “constructive?”