Lesson learned

A couple of months ago I entered a first paragraph contest, and after editing that paragraph about 30 times, I sent it in and waited for the top prize and the accolades to roll in. In reality, it took fourth place. Of course, when I sent it, I thought the paragraph would win, and an agent would read those few sentences and offer me a publishing contract with a huge advance. After I entered it, I read it again and realized why it didn’t win.

Every sentence was about the same length, with identical formatting. Each one was divided by a comma in the middle, pretty much like this sentence and the one before.

Why didn’t I see the pattern BEFORE I sent it in? You can bet that the next time I write or edit a paragraph, I will look more closely at sentence length, structure and patterns. I also reminded myself that it's never too late to learn a valuable lesson.

Write soon,
Mary