Gronklies.
Babies who wake up at 5:00 a.m. eager to play make their mommies cry.
I hope she falls asleep again soon (usually when she pulls the wake up at 5:00 stunt, she tacks on a morning nap in addition to her regularly scheduled afternoon one, so there's hope). Otherwise it'll be too light and I'll be too awake to sleep any more myself, and I didn't go to bed last night until 12:30.
Susan, I respect the fact that you're not content to just dismiss the contest thing with a "Oh, clearly it can't be my prose that's at fault" kind of arrogance, but it does sound like these contests are very rigidly looking for writing-by-numbers. Bugger that.
There are certain entries that win or at least final in contests over and over again--I keep seeing their titles crop up on the results page in the RWA magazine. I'd love to see one of those stories just to compare--are they that good, or have they just nailed the formula to perfection? I know that good, non paint-by-numbers writing can final, because my thoroughly brilliant CP had not one but two entries final in the Regency chapter's contest. But my writing does seem to draw a really wide range of reactions. Some people say that's a sign of having a strong voice, which in the long run is a good thing, but I'm trying to resist the urge to be all arrogant and ignore the contest results because clearly I must have VOICE.
I'm sure this is hardly unique, but I go through massive mood swings in my opinion of my writing. Just in the past week I've gone from noticing remarkable similarities in my voice and style to that of a semi-famous author who shall remain nameless (one that I've read too little of so far to have even unconsciously mimicked) and thinking, "Hey, not bad, you could do a lot worse than to have this person's career," to being mortified at the colossal suckitude of my work and wondering why I ever thought I was good enough to seek publication.
'Specially since we still use thee and thy and other archaic forms in Yorkshire dialect
Tangentially, this reminds me of another choice I've made in my writing. At least so far I'm not even trying to peg my characters' regional British accents. I try to avoid Americanisms and anachronisms, and I do subtle vocabulary shifts to show education levels and some regional variation, but that's it. I hope it's not too lazy/sloppy of me, but I feel like I wouldn't have been able to start writing my WIP yet, the one that's almost finished, because I'd still be studying how to differentiate Jack's Shropshire accent from Anna's subtly Scottish and aristocratic tones from Dan's London speech and I can't leave out the very minor characters I mostly drop in for exposition and to remind the reader that our hero and heroine live in the midst of a crowd and...you get the idea. I figure if I'm not sure I can get it right, it's best to play it really, really subtle.
I've been a long time in writing this post, and Annabel has at last fallen asleep in the playpen. Off to try for a nap of my own...