Judging a Book without a Cover

Having recently become a member of the Romance Writers of Australia I decided to make the most of my membership.  What a very frightening proposition this was to be as I decided to not only enter one of the competitions, but volunteer to be a judge on another.

So I merrily clicked ‘send’ on my entry to ‘Roaring Start’, and all that’s left to do on that one is keep my fingers crossed.  I believe it will be quite a few months before I hear anything so plenty of time to accrue some rejections from elsewhere in the process (teehee).

Far scarier than that, however, was putting myself forward to be a judge on another competition.  You’d think that would be easy, but for good reason it isn’t.  When you’re dealing with critiquing other people’s work you of course have to be constructive yet sensitive, which is much more difficult that it sounds.

I know all too well how horrendous it is to hear that your work doesn’t quite tick all the right boxes so in many ways I think I’m perfectly placed to deliver any sort of feedback.  However, a counter argument would be – who am I to judge when I haven’t actually managed to get anything published myself?!  Hmm, good question…

I of course have an opinion as valid as anyone else’s when it comes to being a reader, so hopefully that goes some way to answering the question.  From a personal point of view I hope that in being a judge will make me a better writer myself, as I see the positives and negatives in other people’s writing and in turn recognise the good points / faults in my own work.

I’ve discovered that been a volunteer judge is very time consuming – and comes with a strong sense of responsibility!  I’ve now read all the judges’ training material, been through several past judging sheets and done my own trial judging session.  I’m just waiting now to find out if I’ve ‘passed’.

Yet another step on this challenging journey of becoming an author – what if I don’t even get accepted as a volunteer judge, I’ve asked myself.  That really would be one knock back too far!  Probably.  Maybe not actually.  The road to being a writer may be thankless up until the point that your manuscript finally gets accepted, but it’s one hell of a lesson in how to develop the skin of a rhino!

 

Books I’m loving – New Recommendations

I’ve been making headway recently on the ever-growing tower of books I want to read.

Here are three I’ve loved and would highly recommend – 2 fact, one fiction:

Grit, by Angela Duckworth

Professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, Angela Duckworth has dedicated her life’s work to discovering what makes someone stick at things until they achieve unprecedented success – or have ‘grit’ in other words.

I read this on a whim and also because I knew that if my most recent writing submission got rejected (which it did!) I’d need to be equipped with some hard core staying power to try again.

Grit is gripping, providing a real insight into the formula of success and perseverance. Packed with powerful case studies and fascinating experiment results, Grit certainly helped me get over disappointment and crack on with my next attempt.

If you need a pick-me-up, try it!

http://angeladuckworth.com/

 

Find Your Extraordinary, by Jessica Dilullo Herrin

The founder of jewellery giant, Stella & Dot, Jessica Dilullo Herrin is a shining example of someone who’s achieved rather incredible things in terms of her life and career.  Find Your Extraordinary talks a bit about how she did it, while being peppered with the stories of others, among advice on how to achieve your own happiness.

It’s not a business guide, but rather a series of uplifting ‘advice bites’, which did succeed in making me feel I might just have some extraordinary inside of me I could endeavour to find!

And when you’ve finished the book, check out the jewellery, because it is rather a-mazing!

http://www.helloextraordinary.com/

 

Proposal At The Winter Ball, by Jessica Gilmore

This is my favourite Mills and Boon book to date – and I’ve read a few!  It’s in the Cherish line, which is relatively new for me.  Cherish, milder on the sex front, is more focused on the sweet side of romance, which is rather nice actually as there’s no distraction from the relationship.

The setting of this book is lovely, the characters are believable and the welcome dash of light humour creates a cosy feel to this gorgeously warm romance.

I’ve got another Jessica Gilmore teasing me from my shelf but I’m abstaining from it for the moment as it’s set in a castle – as is my current manuscript – and I don’t want to be influenced, so I’m saving it till I’ve finished.

I would highly recommend Proposal At The Winter Ball, especially if you’re looking for a ‘hyggelig’ Christmas themed romance.

https://www.millsandboon.co.uk/p46097/proposal-at-the-winter-ball.htm