I won an award!
During the LTUE writing conference early this year, I heard about another organization called Latter-Day Saints in Publishing Media and the Arts (or LDSPMA). As their mission statement says:
"We empower Latter-day Saints interested in publishing, media, and the arts by connecting them at the intersection of faith, creativity, and professional skill."
-ldspma.org
As a member of the church, I was intrigued. I discovered that aside from an annual conference, an excellent blog, podcast, and mentoring, they also had a writing competition. The Praiseworthy Award is only for published authors, filmmakers, and other professionals. But the Praiseworthy Award for Emerging Authors is open to all of us not-yet-published authors.
The Emerging Author award is based on the first chapter (up to 2500 words). I had run the first chapter of Shadows of Light, my unfinished work-in-progress novel, through a couple of writing groups, done multiple rewrites, and I was feeling pretty good about it. So in June did another editing pass, found an excellent place to stop just before the 2500 word mark and submitted it.
And forgot about it.
Life, family, and a job take up a lot of time. Writing takes more than I thought and my effort to finish the book is becoming more focused (frantic?) now that I have spent three years on this story. I also prepped and submitted a short story to another contest/anthology. I just had a lot of things going on.
Then, on September 19th, around lunchtime, an email hit my inbox.
Unfortunately, my phone doesn't automatically show me emails from certain email addresses. My writing email address is one of these. Unless I actually tell it "show me that mailbox" I get nothing. No notification, not even a mysterious ding that would clue me in that there was something I should see. Anyway, I didn't open my email that day. I blissfully went along, doing whatever was occupying my time and thoughts that day, unaware of what was waiting for me.
The next morning, I opened the email client on my writing computer and found this:
Congratulations Philip!
Your entry, Shadows of Light, has won the 2022 Emerging Author award for the Science Fiction/Fantasy category. …As a winner, you are also invited to come to the Praiseworthy Award Gala on Friday, October 21. There is an invitation attached to this email. …
We would also like to make an announcement on our website. Would you mind sending us a nice photo of yourself, from your shoulders up, for us to include in our announcement and in our slideshow at the gala? …
GalaThe memory of that submission came rushing back, and I actually let out a woot! Gratefully I was in my home office and nobody heard it. I couldn't sit. I couldn't stop grinning. I don't remember the last time I've felt that level of excitement.
It wasn't that I'd won, though that was truly awesome. To me, winning the award is an indication that my writing is getting closer to a professional level. It also meant that someone who doesn't know me thought that the story and writing were good enough to be recognized. Those two things mean more than the fancy dinner, the pomp and circumstance, and the otherwise awesome evening.
If you would like to read the award-winning chapter, subscribe to my newsletter and I'll send you the full chapter, a full 900 more words than what I was able to submit to the contest.
