You know that East German judge that was mentioned on here a few days ago?  Well, I’ve had that judge NUMEROUS times!  Me and her…we just don’t see eye to eye.  After recently not making it to the final round in a local contest, I mentioned to a friend that it didn’t exactly shock me.  I routinely receive scores in the vein of a 100 and a 45 in the same contest.  My friend asked, if that was the case, why had I even decided to take the risk with the Golden Heart last year? At first I found this an odd question.  Seriously, it had never even crossed my mind not to enter the Golden Heart.  As an unpublished romance writer, winning the Golden Heart is the goal!  Well, publication is the goal, but until that happens, the GH is the next best thing, in my mind.  So of course I would at least enter, right?  If not, how could I win?

But after thinking about the question a bit more, I reminded myself that not everyone always thinks as I do, so I did some serious contemplating of why the risk of that $50 + postage will always be worth it to me.

Below are the topmost reasons why I entered last year:

1)  I have entered with every one of my manuscripts.  I simply made that decision when I first learned of the contest and discovered its worth.  I’m in this for publication, for a career, and I see the GH as a giant stepping stone to getting there.  So no matter what, I will enter.

2)  It’s a good gauge of where I stand in the grand scheme of the unpublished romance world.  You never know what kind of judges you’ll get, but it does (in my opinion) give you a pretty good feel for where it stands with the general reading public.  After all, we writers are all readers first, right?

If four out of five people love it, that’s 80% of love!  Pretty darn good.  If everyone judges it middle of the road, then I know I have some work to do. I’m ok, but not quite yet making anyone stand up and shout “give me more!”  And if everyone judges it the worst thing ever, then I have some crying—possibly a night of drinking—and then a lot of work to do.

3)  In my opinion, the GH has the potential to be judged a little differently than local contests, and I always hope it might turn out to be a benefit.  Since there is no feedback, and none of the scoring is broken down to force judges to think about each individual area of the entry (POV, characters, first page, etc.), my theory is that if you give the reader a great story and lovable characters, and end with a page-turning hook, then they don’t always do that “breaking down of scores” quite as much themselves.  They just score it as a whole on how much they enjoyed the read.  Therefore, the score could potentially end up a little higher.

Does that make sense?  I know I’ve read some entries that completely crushed me not to have the remainder of the manuscript to read.  It was then hard to judge much less than a nine when I’m dying for more, right?  Of course, this theory could also work against me as a lot of us have seen.  If the judge just flat out hates my voice or something about my writing, they don’t break it down and think about the good things that are there too, I just get the bottom of the barrel, East German score.  But I’m a pretty optimistic person, so I always go in hoping I get the positive response.

4)  When I did have a crazy score in a local contest with that manuscript, I often had another that told me how much they loved it and was certain it would be published.  I thought if I could luck out and get just enough of these types of judges in the GH then I was definitely in.

5)  I really believed in that manuscript!  I still do even though the darn thing hasn’t sold yet!  I can’t speak of this belief enough.  When you’ve worked hard and have done the best job you possibly can, believe in yourself!  If you don’t, why should anyone else?

6)  And most of all, it was simply a risk I was willing to take.  On the crazy chance I got five judges who loved it (or four and the East German Judge + standard deviation), the payout of being a GH finalist—and possibly winning!—was just easily worth the $50 to me.

Additionally, last year I also entered the manuscript I mentioned in the first paragraph of this post that recently did not final in a contest.  At the time of the GH, it was mostly a first draft, with the first three chapters polished up a bit.  I entered that one for some of the same, and some different reasons.

1)  I had set a deadline for myself to get the first draft finished in time to enter it.  I started it on Nov. 9 and had to have it at the Houston office by Dec. 2.  I wanted to see if I could push myself and meet a deadline of that shortened length, and knew the fact I’d already invested the $50 would help push me.  There were a few scenes that pretty much read something like [love scene needed here], and I seriously almost didn’t make it, but in the end I had the word count and surprised myself with how complete it really was.

2)  See #1 above.  I enter all manuscripts.

3)  See #2 above.  I wanted to see where it stood.  To see how much of my voice and raw writing talent was coming through at this point in my writing without the normal amount of editing.

4)  See #6 – what if it did final?  Then I could be a double finalist!  It actually ended up in the top 25% so I was really pleased.  In my opinion, another $50 well spent.

Probably way more than you ever wanted to know about what goes on inside my head, but there it is.  I firmly believe that if you have a manuscript you have poured your heart into, if you’ve done the best you can possibly do, and if the $50 won’t make your kids starve (the occasional starving husband is ok), then you should go for it!

So what do you think?  Do you have a manuscript you believe in?  Do you believe in yourself?  Then what are you waiting for?  I can personally tell you, the feeling of stepping up on that stage to accept the award—even if you are the first category of the night and SCARED TO DEATH!—overrides any fear I could ever dream up about whether to enter or not.

Let me know your thoughts…is it worth the risk for you?  What reasons do you have for entering?

Today I’m giving away your choice of either a first chapter critique (up to 25 pages) or one of our fabulous Ruby-Slippered Sisterhood mugs.  So comment often for more chances to win!

-Kim