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Illustration by Alex Deadman-Wylie
You entered the contest on a whim, two days before the cut-off date. Was it enough time to produce something award-worthy? Surely not. But then some writers thrived on deadlines, the pressure driving them to create their best work. That day you wrote at a bleary, frantic pace – the way writing guru Natalie Goldberg taught you to. You wrote without blinking, without breathing, it seemed. It paid off. Your story sang on the page, if you say so yourself. It had everything: emotional intensity, rich, sensory details. You relived a day you hadn’t thought about in years, a time in your life which you tried to forget.
Often you write around something, edging nearer, without ever reaching the station. This time, though, you knew you had arrived, you got there – to that rare and rarefied place writers dream about. You have been at this for too long to believe in the Muse. You no more believe in her than you do in the Tooth Fairy. You are, after all, no longer some moon-eyed undergrad. There is no mystical force that descends upon you when you sit down to write. Whatever comes from your pen (or keyboard) is the borne of sweat and tears, the result of hundreds of hours of your butt in the chair. Working writers know there is no shortcut. And yet, it pains you to admit it, this time felt different. That draft came so easily, or rather, easily enough to be circumspect.
You hit “send” anyway, throwing caution – and spellcheck – to the wind. (You later discovered your submission had several typos.) You knew better than to bypass proofreading, but there was no time. You entered the contest you never planned to enter. Then you forgot about it entirely until the e-mail landed in your inbox months later. “Congratulations! You made the longlist.” So, you were a contender, spoken in a Brando drawl. You were gobsmacked at the sheer volume of submissions. The tingling throughout your body felt vaguely erotic.
You couldn’t believe it. In the next breath, you warned yourself not to get too excited, not to get your hopes up. It’s only the longlist. At the same time, shouldn’t you savour the moment and what it signified: that your work (maybe) had merit? You didn’t care about winning – until you did. This was a first for you. What had you ever won besides that Easter colouring contest? Your crayon masterpiece was tacked to a supermarket wall for all to see. A certain mark of pride.
The shortlist, to be clear, is not a colouring contest. What it is, is the longest of long shots: 30 finalists whittled down to just five. There is prize money and a coveted writing residency to be won. Before long, you find yourself fantasizing about how you might spend the cash, about how it would feel to carve out two weeks in the woods. Two weeks in which to work, alone. You imagine yourself seated at a well-worn desk in a cabin that smells not of the pine air freshener that dangles in your car but the real deal. You see it all so clearly: the laptop cracked open at the ready, the steaming brew next to it …
Before long, the contest consumes you. You tell yourself and everyone who offers their congratulations that you are “just happy to have made the longlist.” You are sure they can see straight through you.
Eventually the day comes. Cue the big announcement. The shortlist is announced, and you are not on it. You wake abruptly from the nice dream with the cabin. The effect is jarring, disorientating. The details were so vivid, so real. Those dreams are the most brutal, you think. The next morning you vow to stay off of social media, to give yourself space in which to wallow. This is not the sort of thing that you can air publicly without looking like a brat. After all, you made the #longlist. It’s such an #honour and you are incredibly #grateful for the opportunity. Yet you hate the hollow that is left in its wake. These are the aspects of being a writer that make you ugly, petty. Rejection. Competition. It’s a side of yourself that you don’t care to look at too closely or to show the world.
Maybe you aren’t alone in your vice, though. Maybe the other losers (sic, longlisters) are also sulking, presently consoling themselves with Häagen-Dazs or something stronger, before sitting down to write something new. Power to them. And power to you.
There’s always next year.
Julie M Green lives in Kingston, Ont.
