Last May, on my (now largely ignored) photography/creativity blog, I spread the word about Lee & Low Books' New Voices Award.
I also blogged about my New Learning in writing a picture book.
And then on this blog, I wrote about my Sender's Remorse for sending in my manuscript to the Lee & Low New Voices Award.
So here's what happened: I won their Honor Award. Yep. I did. That manuscript that I doubted so much? Won their Honor Award, their second place. Out of 180 manuscripts they received, mine won second place.
I was, I'm pretty sure, screaming into the phone when I got the call. Pretty sure I was not professional at all. Pretty sure it was completely surreal and still is.
I feel validated. This definitely served to spur me to continue on this writing journey when I was feeling a little soggy about it. But I'm not losing my head. I do realize that my manuscript fit a certain niche at a certain time for a certain publisher and that I am very lucky to have been chosen. Sure, I did a lot of hard work on that story, but I had a great beta reader (Alison DeLuca) and will need to do a lot more work on it so that it is publishable.
But my biggest take away? Finish your shit!* This was my first manuscript that I finished. (Don't read this, Lee & Low people. I'm really very professional and finish everything I start. Ahem.) I have several unfinished starts, but yep, this was the first one I finished. BIG lesson. Finish your shit.*
SQUEEEEE!!
*from Chuck Wendig's terribleminds blog and book, The Kick-Ass Writer.
So does this award give you an inside track for eventually publishing with Lee and Low? Will you need to find an artist to work with? Just curious!
ReplyDeleteFrancis, that is the plan. And writers don't get to choose the illustrators. Publishing company/editor does that. :)
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