We just finished the Winter Olympics a few weeks ago and now are in the middle of awards season in Hollywood. The ambition and drive, sweat and tears of athletes and artists are being duly rewarded.
 
For writers, awards are more like dessert than the main course. We write to tell stories, to entertain readers and to take people to a place they’ve never been before. Sure, we submit our books for awards, but it’s something you do and then forget about because you are publicizing your latest story, hosting signing events at local coffeehouses and bookstores and dreaming of your next labor of love.
 
Then, one day you get a note from your publisher that you have indeed won a contest you entered weeks or months ago. You realize your work has a larger audience, that people who know what makes a book good think your little tale is worthy of recognition. You are ranked with other writers whose work also has moved people.
 
They tell you you’ve won a silver medal and you think, well, that’s just a figure of speech. That is, until an actual shiny medallion arrives in the mail. And that’s when it hits you that you’re a writer, an award-winning writer. It’s like they say every four years: it’s not the color of the medal that matters, but the fact that you’re on the podium in the first place.
 
Then the Olympic motto runs through your head as you begin to assemble the pieces that will comprise your next literary endeavor:
 
Faster – Higher – Stronger