Let me be honest. I want to win a Nebula. I want to win a Hugo. I want to win an ENnie. I would love to call myself an award-winning writer. I doubt that will happen anytime soon, though, as the venues that publish my work don't exactly have a large readership by those who vote for these awards.
Still, I will keep plugging away, keep writing, and keep hoping anyway. There's nothing wrong with that, is there?
It amazes me how many people write with the sole goal of winning one of these awards. They religiously go to the awards ceremonies (or watch them on You!Tube and Twitter), read the ballots, check off the winners, read the winners' stories (and sometimes the nominees' stories) to find that secret ingredient that made that writer so special. They obsess over writers workshops taught by the award winners, or the winners' agents & editors. They sit down at their desk, fingers poised over their keyboards, and start their story with the thought "this is going to be the story that gets me that trophy."
I kid you not. There are writers who actually do this. I won't say these writers are bad at their craft necessarily, but I can't say they are award-winning either. Newsflash, boys and girls. Winning the award does not make you a fantastic writer. You win the award because you already are a fantastic writer. And I say this as a writer who has yet to win any awards.
Your goal should never be "write an award-winning story." You're setting yourself up for disappointment and failure if that's the only thing you think of when you write. And your craft will not improve if you're busy aping award-winning writers instead of finding your own voice. That's what a lot of these awards are looking for anyway, someone with a strong voice and a unique way of telling a tale. Copying others will get you nowhere. Write. Write more. Hone your skills. Get published. Don't worry about the awards. Worry about telling a good story.
When I sit down and write, my first goal is "I will finish this story." It doesn't seem like a lot, but it's a powerful motivator. My secondary and tertiary goals are to "have a plot" and "make the characters interesting." Only after the story is finished do I look at it and hope that "maybe this is the one that people will like." "This is the one I'll get published on Tor.com." "This is the one reviewers will talk about."
It rarely happens, of course. The two stories which have gotten public mention are "Two for the Price of One" in the Transformers: Legends anthology and "Tales We'll Tell Tomorrow" in Shadowrun: Street Legends. The Transformers review (well, more of a comment) was "A Swindle story. It's a Swindle story. Brandie, I love you!" The Shadowrun comments center around what the readers think of the characters' decisions in the story, not how good (or bad) the writing was.
You know what? That's okay. I love the fact that my stories wrap people up so much into the story that it's the characters they're criticizing, and not the author. I love this. It's fantastic. I've achieved a goal I didn't even know I was aiming for: get the readers so involved in the story that they forget it's not real.
I still want to win an award, but with reviews like this I think I can manage without one. After all, my writing touches the people who count the most. Readers.
