Consolation Ten

Ten Things for Certain Industry Award Non-Finalists

1. So you're not politically correct enough to sway an anal, uptight, anti-[insert subgenre] judge. Personally? I like you already.

2. You won't have that stupid award-winner sunburst ruining your cover art.

3. You can take the next contest entry fee and instead use it to mail submissions to agents and publishers who will actually get your book into print.

4. You don't have to attend the big awards luncheon, where you know they'll sit you at the table with Born Again Barbie and her posse, The Sisters of the Immaculate Love Scene.

5. You're out fifty bucks, but that wonderful writer organization of yours is $50,000.00 richer now. Think of the countless amazing things they're going to do for you and your career with all that money.

5a. Okay, that was mean. Sorry.

6. Take all your depression/outrage/disappointment over being rejected, channel into your work, and write a bestseller. Don't laugh, that's what I did.

7. You're allowed to eat as much chocolate or other comfort food as you want for the next week. Anyone bitches, send them to me.

8. In this industry, terrific read and award-winning novel are rarely synonyms.

9. That which hurts us either destroys us, or pisses us off and drives us to write great books. Take your pick.

10. You won't have to collect the plaque. This means you also won't have to have your good suits cleaned, buy matching shoes that don't have scratched heels, have your hair cut, take vacation time from work, board the pets, leave your kids with your weirdest relative, fly across the country sitting next to Bob the Alcoholic Obese Marital Aid Salesman, who thinks you're the spitting image of Air Force Amy. You won't stay in a lousy hotel where you'll spend 99% of your time waiting for an overcrowded elevator, or trying not to throttle the chatty chapter friend/roommate whom you discover drinks like a dock worker, snores like a steam whistle, leaves her skid-marked underwear wherever they drop and is highly allergic to every cosmetic and perfume you own. Additionally, you won't have to eat mystery chicken entrees, limp from blisters inflicted by your new shoes, hate your new hair-from-hell cut, pay $20 for pantyhose from the gift shop because all the ones you brought have mysteriously acquired three-inch runs, and then return home to spend a week in bed with the flu while your kids regale you with tales of setting off firecrackers in Weird Relative's garage next to piles of oil-soaked rags and pyramids of partially-filled gas cans. Nor will your finances drop fifteen hundred dollars deeper in debt while you try to pay for all of the above and therapy for the kids. Work for you?