Zestful Blog Post #255
Awards Versus Happiness
If you read this blog, you’re my friend. At some point before
we’re all dead, I’m gonna send out a newschat, but today you guys will learn a
little bit of news in advance, along with my Facebook friends, who saw this
yesterday. Gonna talk about awards here. If you are an author, especially,
please read to the end of this post to get my most heartfelt and useful advice.
Last week I learned that Crimes in a Second Language is receiving the silver medal in the Florida Book Awards,
general fiction category. Which is nice. But upon hearing the news, I was like,
shit! Because I had wanted and
expected gold! That’s how I am: totally confident in my superiority as an
author. Which, though arguably delusional, has not proved to be any serious handicap.
During the most recent cycle of the Olympics, I read
somewhere that psychologists have determined that the least happy medalists are
the ones who get silver. Because of course the gold people are happy that they won
the top prize, and the bronze people generally are ecstatic that they got a
medal at all. The silver people go Aw
hell, should have gotten the gold! And that was exactly my first reaction to this
silver medal. But I’m over it. I’m gratified that the other two medalists in my
category were published by major houses in hardcover, while I released Crimes independently, under Spruce Park
Press, my personal imprint. The gold went to Laura Lee Smith for The Ice House (Grove Atlantic) and the
bronze went to Randy Wayne White for Mangrove Lightning (Putnam). I hope to meet them both, along with the winners in the other ten categories, at a dinner in Tallahassee next month. Will
someone actually put the medals around our necks, like at the Olympics? The thought
makes me nervous. I’ll report back.
I give major credit to the judges for taking my book
seriously and not discounting it because it’s a humble indie. Their identities
are public information on the FBA web site, so I’m going to thank them here: Chris
Coward, Jennifer Pratt, and Dianna Narciso. All judges are past winners of FBAs.
I highly approve of having judges be identified, because it makes the process
transparent. Yeah, I guess an author could try to coddle up to a judge or send
a case of Scotch to their house, but the risk of something like that swaying a
judge doesn’t cancel out the benefits of transparency.
[From the Florida Book Awards website: The competition is run by the Florida State University Libraries and co-sponsored by the Florida Center for the Book, the State Library and
Archives of Florida, the Florida Historical Society, the Florida Humanities
Council, the Florida Literary Arts Coalition, the Florida Library Association, “Just
Read, Florida!,” the Florida Association for Media in Education, The Center for
Literature and Theatre @ Miami Dade College, Friends of the Florida State
University Libraries, the Florida Writers Association, and the Florida Chapter
of the Mystery Writers of America.]
When you think about it, most of us have competed for lots
of things. Grades in school, the affection of a parent, athletic contests and
games, and so much more. Competition is a part of life. Some competitions are
completely objective. You skate the fastest or you don’t. You jump the highest
or you don’t. You earn the most money or you don’t. Then there are the subjective contests, which play so much havoc with artists. Your pirouette spin
wasn’t as pretty as hers. Your book wasn’t as good as his.
I’ve cursed judging panels when books of mine have been
snubbed and books of inferior quality (in my opinion) given prizes. “Pearls
before swine!” is my go-to rant, meaning the judges’ tastes were so coarse
they couldn’t recognize quality when they saw it. I’ve been a judge in literary
contests, and I know how subjective the process can be. (Certain things you can
be objective about: the mechanics of writing, for instance. Then there is
literary merit. Let the brawl begin!)
The sad reality is that awards do drive readers’ choices.
Just the other day I participated in a group reading with other authors; all of
us had some books for sale. As I was signing a copy of Left Field for a reader, she said, “I bought the one that won the
award!” That copy happened to have a GCLS Goldie sticker on it, one of a bunch
they give you for such use.
Some authors get depressed when they don’t win an award, and
that’s just so wrong. Understandable, but wrong. You gotta either get mad for a
while (pearls before swine), or shrug and say, “Who cares?” You cannot let the
non-win affect your self-esteem. It’s the same when a negative review smacks you
in the face. The hell with it.
So, publish your work, enter competitions, go for the gold,
but remember this tremendously important fact: Your work is not you. Your work
is your work. It is separate from you. And remember the corollary: A win doesn’t
mean you’re special. It means a particular piece of your work was judged to be
worthy. That’s all.
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