[I wrote this post as a member of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group where we share our worries and also offer support to each other on the first Wednesday of every month.  If you’re a writer like me and you’re looking for a bit of support, you can click the link and sign up here]

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Last Wednesday night was a bit of a nail biter.

Game II of the World Series, the Kansas City Royals versus the New York Mets with the Royals being my own home team, and the game of all things, was in my hometown.

That night was also the night before a major writing deadline for Writer’s Digest, a contest possibility I’d been planning to submit my work to for the past week and a half.

I sat at my desk with a three-hour stretch in front of me.  In my own busy world of work and writing and family, I’d missed a few points in the submission process. And in that daunting moment, I faced the almost inevitable decision not to go for it.

My dilemma?

1. The log line. Consolidating the entirety of my 71,000 K current word count manuscript into one bitty sentence. I didn’t think I had enough time. To do that, I knew I’d have to streamline and I tend to be wordy on short notice time frames.

This log line couldn’t be a run-on sentence. But a powerful verb filled sentence anyone could get and not only get, but also feel the same excitement about my work that I do enough to want more.

Could you do that? Consolidate your biggest passion into one sentence and make it so enthralling you hook a stranger so they too, understand exactly who you are and why you are different and why they should care?

… AND … do it is less than three hours?
It’s a difficult spot to be in.

The second bigger point in why I didn’t submit?

2. A completed manuscript.

I couldn’t honestly back up the submission point in having a completed manuscript to my own personal satisfaction. With a previous draft completed, I’d since shifted the plot line and easily had another 20,000 K in words left to complete.

On the Upside of the contest?

The main prize did look amazing. The chance to have the first 10 pages of my manuscript critiqued by an incredibly talented agent who liked my genre, Young Adult Fiction, and after researching the agent further, who was also interested in my specific genre, Young Adult fantasy. Real world life mixed with a bit of magical dust.

Wrapping up my decision.

So! Maybe my worries got the best of me. Even though I knew the manuscript wouldn’t be reviewed in its entirety, there is always potential an agent might pick you up.

Unfortunately, I am a rule follower.

So what do you think? Even though the decision is past and gone, what would you have done?

~Erika