Some of you might remember my downtrodden nature upon receiving my first Golden Heart scores in 2003. Some of you might also remember my “take that!” speech at the Maggie Awards last October, when I thanked the judge who graded my Maggie Award-winning manuscript a 1 of 9, for teaching me not to believe everything you read.
Well, my last Golden Heart scores came in, and they were for Meltdown.
8.5, 8.7, 5, 8, 5.2
Sad. sS it me, or would those numbers make an interesting scatter-graph? Three people who clearly liked it, and two people who…what? Thought it was average for a short contemporary? Don’t like sex? Don’t have a sense of humor? Don’t like the fact that I would DARE have my hero make jokes about his own recent bout with cancer? (I get that one sometimes — probably from people who don’t understand that it’s part of a man’s fight, to act like this powerful illness is something you can make fun of.)
I’m guessing it’s the sex. A Blaze-writing friend (and current RITA finalist) told me that her Blaze got straight fives in the RITA contest, and the “fives” are not uncommon.
Something needs to be done about the RWA’s scoring system. That’s all I have to say.
