Intro by Pam Nowak
Among my memories of the first Colorado Gold conference I attended (1994) was the awe I felt at the Awards Banquet, watching winners of the Colorado Gold Contest being recognized. Oh, how I wanted to one day be among them!
I’d heard the story of Jessica Wulf who won in 1992 and signed with an agent and sold the book to Kensington later that night. Kay Bergstrom tells it this way: “At the conference when Jessica won, Meredith Bernstein, an agent from NY said, while sitting at the bar, “Fetch me the young girl who won historical,” and bought Jessica’s book.” Jessica recalled nearly missing the deadline: “I made the midnight June 1st postmark deadline for RMFW’s Colorado Gold Writing Contest with only 15 minutes to spare…The Irish Rose won the Historical Romance Category. Later that night, I was asked to join Kensington Editor Ann Lafarge and Agent Meredith Bernstein in the bar. That conversation ended with Meredith asking to be my agent and Ann asking for a 3-book proposal, even though both knew I did not have a completed manuscript. On Friday, November 13, 1992, only two months after Conference, Meredith called to inform me that Ann made an offer for the Rose trilogy.”
I entered every year, hoping to seize my own dream. But I had no concept then of the history of RMFW or the contest itself. Now, being among the older members of RMFW, I wish I had taken the time to learn more from those who came before. As we launch a series on the Colorado Gold Contest, I am sorry for what we didn’t record.
Kay Bergstrom related that the contest was born in 1989 or 90 with editors reading the finalists’ entries. Jasmine Cresswell and Carol Caverly indicated there were four categories: romance, sci-fi, fantasy, and mainstream. Sharon Mignerey recalled the contest was established as a money maker, helping to generate funding for organizational programming. We don’t have the earliest of scoresheets but in one of my own scrapbooks, I have forms from my first year of entering the contest in 1994. The scoresheet was one page in length with 12 items worth one to four points each (from needs significant work to publishable). It remained the same for 1995. In 1996, Robin D. Owens and Jim Cole took the reins. Robin shares her memories of the role of contest in her life and in RMFW’s mission.
THE COLORADO GOLD CONTEST
So, my name is Robin D. Owens and I am an oldie with RMFW. I was asked to write about the RMFW Colorado Gold Contest. Most of those who vaguely know me don’t know that I was contest co-chair, along with the late Jameson Cole, for two years.
But that starts a little later…there’s background to be shared. I always say that RMFW taught me to write, and that’s the absolute truth. Our critique groups and the published and unpublished writers who shared so much of their knowledge with me taught me how to write.
I joined RMFW in the olden days before e-publishing after I wrote my first book (never sold). Back then, a person who self-published was called a “vanity press author,” because there were very few ways to market a non-traditional-publishing-house book. Making money from self-publishing in fiction rarely happened. (I changed that from “didn’t” to “rarely.” I personally don’t know of anyone who made a good amount of money self-publishing novels in those days, but I might be wrong).
The standard saying, and standard experience at the time I became a serious writer was “you get published on book 4 or about 8-10 years after you start writing.” This was true with me, too. I sold my fourth book (due to winning a different contest), after about eight years of writing … again, pretty much the 10K hour rule (from Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers). I published about 23 books with traditional publishers before I started epublishing myself after Jove became Berkley became Penguin became Penguin Random House…
This background is important because it shows just how important Contest and Conference were. They were ways to make that first sale, to connect with real professionals who worked mostly out of New York.
During my first conference as an active RMFW member, the talk at conference was about a friend of mine, Jessica Wulf. By winning the contest, she got an agent and sold her book to one of the editors who attended the conference.
So, BIG deal.
I’ve been an entrant, a judge, and contest co-chair since then. As part of my “learning to write process,” I was urged to judge the contest, and I DID judge the contest until the latest changes about three years ago. During that time, I think I saw the scoresheets change about five or six times. That Included the two years Jim and I revised the contest sheet.
The changes were initiated to made the scoring more objective, to define what judges should be looking for. The 1996 changes scored seven areas and offered bonus points for things done extremely well. We sent the sheet out to all our judges workshopping it, and eventually had a consensus of what we wanted. I recall a summer gathering where we all talked about the scoresheets and made the last tweaks.
At that time, the whole contest process was snail-mailed or hand-delivered at various RMFW events, monthly meetings, seminars, etc. The scoring was also by hand on paper sheets, as were the manuscript pages. As the contest geared up, both Jim and I spoke at a seminar about it, the formatting (based on New York guidelines), what contest would be judging, and the general process. That was my first public speaking gig, ever.
I know in those days there were people driving to the intake person’s house the day, or even the night, of the contest deadline to drop off their entries. I did that myself during the years I was NOT the contest chair. So, truly, back in the dark ages.
But, like always, RMFW was interested in bringing the best we could to the entrants of the contests. The judges worked hard at commenting and critiquing to make each person who had the courage to submit their precious story to us feel as if we took them and their writing seriously.
And we judged on hooking the reader, plot arc and story arc. On every entry I wrote that these were the corrections I would make and why I would make them. But the story is the one YOU want to tell. Consider my (and other judges’) comments/critiques, but write the story you need to.
Always remember that contest judging is subjective. A story may hit the judge (or editor or your reader) right or wrong. Craft can be taught and can be learned, but YOU have YOUR own personal voice and ideas that no one else in the world can provide.
May your writing dreams come true.
Robin