After a looooong wait, it’s finally official. The three finalists for the Writers of the Future 2nd quarter have been announced.
Close inspection of these names will reveal that mine is not among them. I received a call from Joni at WOTF yesterday letting me know my story had not made the top three. She sounded more disappointed than I did. Anyway, it’s a relief to know and I can now move on to something else.
The cool thing about this list is that it contains two folks from Australia, Patty Jansen and Benn Mann. Patty was a finalist last quarter too, so it’s fitting that she would move to top three this time. I wish all three winners well and vow to submit an even better story next quarter.
Failure sucks, but the only way not to end in failure, is to pick oneself up and try again.
We’re in the same boat. But hey, that just means three more competitors out of the way, right? Do you have entries in Q3 and 4?
Now that’s a great attitude 🙂 Good luck to you with your next subs. Maybe we’ll meet in LA. I didn’t submit in Q3 or Q4, but am working on a story for Q1.
This has got to be disappointing, but you seem to have a healthy mindset about it. I’ve entered a story in the Q4 contest, but I’m not holding my breath. I have, however, gotten a little blue in the face waiting to hear back from Andromeda Spaceways regarding a story they shortlisted back in May. Found out today they rejected it. Didn’t they hold one of yours, too? And how about Aberrant Dreams? I haven’t heard anything from them about a story I submitted in May…
Thanks Milo.
Good luck with Q4. It will be a great experience for you if you win.
Andromeda rejected my story with a single cryptic comment: “Good story, but goes too long”. Kind of ironic, given my current focus on conciseness.
I gave up on Aberrant Dreams when they didn’t answer my query. Sent the story off to another market (another rejection, alas).
This is one of those low points in the roller coaster ride. It will get better, I tell myself. Now I just have to make it so.
ASIM told me the same thing; in their words: “I’ve got to say I groaned when I saw the length of this story … It could do with some editing to cut the length down some.” Otherwise, they sounded positive — but not enough to ask for a rewrite.
I’ve sent two queries to Aberrant Dreams and will probably give up also. =[
Indeed. Make it so!
Remember the taste of this, give yourself some time to digest it… then get back up. Next quarter, it might be you.
Hey Stephen, it was rather a long wait, wasn’t it? I like to think it took so long because of the volume of submissions and difficulty in selecting between some very strong finalists.
So I wouldn’t call hitting finalist a failure by any measure. If the whole process teaches us one thing it’s that in publishing we can only control how good our submissions are – we can’t control what else is on the editor’s desk when they pick that next acquisition. And since you’ve got a story which progressed very far in a very competitive market, I’d wager that you’ll be able to sell it to a pro market very easily.
All the best with your Q1 submission!