[Discontinued] In which I put on my ranty pants and change hats from angry to amused to melancholic to retrospective to preachy to who knows what else.
Nobody really cares what I have to say, but I'm going to say it anyway!
This is pretty much a pe...
It's been a month since WE THE YOUNG won one of the coveted Watty Awards for the Young Adult category in 2020.
I've needed just as long to process this, LOL. Trust me, I thought about writing up a speech right away but in truth I felt like a goldfish, and all I could sputter out was air.
Because this is pretty huge for me???
If you know me well enough, you know I'm an ambitious person. I want the world and I work hard to get my piece of it. But I'm not really someone who advertises what she's specifically going after. Only after the fact do I say "I wanted X and I got it!" because I don't do too well with disappointment.
And in a year full of disappointments, getting a Watty was a pretty big victory.
Which is why now I should have the confidence to say I got the three things I wanted the most: 1) Getting featured, 2) becoming a Star and 3) winning a Watty!
Back when nobody gave me the time of the day, I dreamed about those three things (in that order). Finally, I accomplished them in the span of a year (first was 2, then 1 and last but not least 3).
Whew, how things can change!
While, yes, the blood, sweat and tears were mine to shed to make this happen, there were numerous people along the way who cheered me on, lifted me up, and recommended my work to others. Without them these things probably wouldn't have happened. Chances are if you're reading this you're one of them, and I really want to thank you.
As the dust has cleared, I've also had a lot of people asking for tips for the future Wattys—most of them, to be honest, aren't readers of mine. They don't know the kind of work I've put to get here.
Because ultimately that's the only advice I can give and it's based on my experience. I haven't been an overnight success or someone whose content went viral. In fact, my winning story is my most underrated. It used to be my sore spot when I looked at my profile.
Remember, everyone's journey is different.
I actually applied for the Wattys with WTY twice. First, in 2019 and then in 2020. If you look at it that way, it was already "rejected" in 2019 and I could've taken that as a hard fact and not tried again.
But I did try, and in the process I learned that Fort Minor's Remember the Name is right:
This is ten percent luck
Twenty percent skill
Fifteen percent concentrated power of will
Five percent pleasure
Fifty percent pain
And a hundred percent reason to remember the name
The only thing you can control is a) the quality of your work and b) whether it fulfills the given requirements. Anything else is out of your hands.
And that fifty percent pain component? Too real. It includes all the setbacks, rejections and disappointments you need to experience to evolve. And you need to experience them, because the worst thing that can happen to you is thinking success is a given and anything else is the outlier.
So if you applied for the Wattys and didn't win, don't let that stop you. Keep working. Keep learning. It might not be this year or the next. It might not be for you, period, but something else will be. You'll find your thing—but only if you don't give up.
I'll be sure to remember my own advice the next time I suffer a defeat.
But for now, I can say for the first time in my life that I'm an award winning writer :)
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