Wednesday, October 23, 2013

WHW Amazing Race Day 3 & FPR Tailgate Winners!


If you have not checked out or participated in the Writers Helping Writers Amazing Race going on over at Writers Helping Writers: Home of the Bookshelf Muse from Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi, YOU ARE MISSING OUT!!

It's DAY 3 and they are still going strong helping out writers every single day this week and giving out prizes!

I'm so glad to be a part of this. I'm not a professional anything but I'm hoping that my simple unbiased advice to other writer's helps them in some way. The feedback I've gotten from them so far has been really great. I guess we are actually helping each other.

Please head over to check out all the goodness. Maybe you will see a category (there are 10) that you wouldn't mind a little help with! It's as simple as filling out an online form and sitting back waiting for a reply.

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If you entered the Front Porch Romance October Tailgate Hop Giveaway...here is a list of the winners.

~ Tailgate Winners ~
1 – April Warren – Winner of ‘What Goes Around’ by Anne Bikov and ‘Charity’s Heart’ by Sofia Diana Gabel.
2 – Tiffany Seiler Roe – Winner of a $10.00 gift certificate from Front Porch Romance and ‘Coming Home’ by Misty Matthews.
3 – Christa Simpson –Winner of ‘The Captain’s Promise’ by Susanne Matthews and ‘The Rock Star’s Girls’ by Tasha Taylor.
4 – Erin Thompson – Winner of ‘Maguire’s Corner’ by Heather M. Gardner and ‘Stolen Treasures’ by Christy Newton.
5 – Danielle Sharon Saffell – Winner of ‘The Makeover’ by Monica Garry-Allen and ‘The Rebel’s Promise’ by Jane Godman.
Front Porch Romance ~ http://www.frontporchromance.com/

Congrats to you all and we hope you enjoy the reads!

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I have a tiny pet peeve that I'd like to get off my chest.

This past month held the So You Think You Can Write contest from HQN/MB. You might remember me talking about it incessantly last year.

I did not participate this year. I already know that I'm not the kind of writer that HQN is looking for.

But, I kept an eye on things via Twitter, remembering all the excitement and the new friends that I had made a year ago.

What I can't fathom is why some of these writers would enter a contest this established with an unfinished manuscript.

Many of them were talking about finishing the MS before the contest deadline. Even after they had chosen the Top 50 I saw a few were scrambling to finish writing before they had to email their whole MS to HQN.

Now, I get editing. We can edit our own work until the day its published and even after. We will always find something we think needs fixin'.

But, not to have a finished their MS before they entered? How can you even like your own MS without an ending? How do you edit and polish it to the gold-standard when you only wrote it an hour before?

Maybe its just me.

 

6 comments:

  1. No way I would enter a contest without not only finishing the manuscript, but running it by critique partners and polishing it!

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  2. I bet those same writers query publishers and agents with an unfinished manuscript, too. Some may never understand why they keep getting rejected.

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  3. Alex - I know. It's crazy.

    L. Diane - I think you are right on the money about that one.

    Heather

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  4. CONGRATS to all the Tailgate Hop Giveaway winners!!

    I agree with both Alex and Diane. You can't submit your best doing things that last minute.

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  5. First, thanks so very much for answering my Amazing Race request and tweeting my cover reveal. I'm so pleased with the turn out on my blog, and you should be so proud of all the good you and other of the race are accomplishing! :-)

    Second, I totally get your peeve. Like you, I believe in working very hard and being professional. However, when it comes to who gets picked, the winner can be anyone with an idea that appeals to the editor. I can't tell you how many mediocre writers I've seen get agents and contracts based on the odd tastes of editors. Such is life.

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  6. Congratulations to the winners!

    And people submitted unfinished MSs?! That just floors me. I don't even think that should be allowed. For a contest like that, you'd want to give them a polished gem.

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