PNWA Contest Awards Banquet
I should’ve written this yesterday, but didn’t take the time between one thing and another. I got over 3600 words written during the weekend! (Mostly because I hit a patch that didn’t need much re-writing, but hey.)
So, as I said in the previous post, I went the Pacific Northwest Writers Association literary contest awards banquet Saturday night as a finalist. To get the suspense over with quickly, I was awarded third place in the SciFi/Fantasy category.
Wow.
I am so thrilled, and grateful, and still bubbling over with excitement. I was pretty much insufferable yesterday: it was just about the only thing I could talk about. I’m better today. Really.
I got to the Hilton (where the PNWA conference was being held) more than an hour early, since I’d left lots of extra time for traffic or anything else, but I would much rather kill time than be late. Not that it would have mattered too much in this case, since they didn’t open the doors to the banquet room until after it was supposed to start. I don’t know how long after. It felt like a long time. Standing in a hot hallway with a crowd of people will do that.
The dinner was good, caesar salad and pasta, with excellent desserts. My neighbor at the table and I congratulated each other on not getting spaghetti sauce anywhere on our clothes. The wine was good too, though I didn’t drink much of it. The food was, of course, eaten on top of a very nervous stomach. The longer I sat there and waited the worse it got. Especially after the presentation started. It was very well done, and I enjoyed the whole thing despite my nerves. The woman doing the presentation had just the right amount of humor to keep it fun. When my name was announced I managed to get to the stage and back without tripping, fainting, or otherwise embarrassing myself. So did everyone else. (Well done all of us!) Not all of the winners were there at the banquet, of course: in SciFi/Fantasy the second place winner was there but not the first. The number of categories with one winner there outnumbered the ones with three.
After everything was done all the first, second and third place winners who were there were herded off to a hotel suite and plied with cupcakes and wine while we waited for the agents to get back from whatever they were out doing for dinner. At this point I was glad that not all the winners had been there, because the room was pretty darn crowded as it was. Everyone – writers and agents both – was polite and at least seemed to be having a good time. I enjoyed talking to the other writers, and connected with a couple agents who represent fantasy, so I was very happy with the evening.
That may be an understatement.
Now I just have to finish this darn thing. That’s another reason for 3600 words over the weekend, most of which was written on Sunday. I am going to work my rear end off while the Kid’s gone (just over two weeks more). No more messing around. This is getting done.
(P.S. – All of us packed into that hotel room eventually got loud enough that we were actually kicked out of the room. Ha! They gave us a conference room down below to finish up in, though. Yep, us writers sure known how to party. *snort*)