kate rothwell

I'm fairly certain I've turned into a terrible contest judge. For instance, an entry I gave a crappy score to just finalled--so there has to be something going on in there that I missed. Lately I think it's like a color blind person giving art critiques. Naw, that's not it exactly. I'm confident enough about my own tastes to know that I'm not wrong, per se, but the trouble is what I appreciate isn't popular. And since the whole point is to get popular ummmmmm....hello? I shouldn't offer my advice on anything but the grammar and the spellllling stuff and mebbe any details I find confusing. Instead I'm putting in too much of my instinctive response, which is a matter of pure opinion. Trouble is, the questions in most contests are geared to the judges' preferences and not the mechanics. I glanced at my crits in the last contest and I'm also getting less supportive. There's hardly any you go, girl! in what I write. Always some but not as mu...

Oh, damn. This phrase at tumperkin's place "fierce authors" caught my eye. It's a great phrase and I nodded along and I agree. Impassioned, fierce. That's what readers want. That booming back-beat sort of music--nothing wispy--directed and intense that moves your belly. Stories with boiling hot action, anger, hunger...intensity. I'm reading those books and I can feel that word fierce in everything, from the plots, characters to word choices. That isn't me or my writing. At my very best, I approach EF Benson's pace. There are only so many slots for the wispy stuff. Please, fate, don't make me have to go back to writing magazine articles again. I really like writing fiction.