You Can’t Win ‘Em All

I was really excited the other day when I got an envelope from Writer’s Digest.
Last year I entered their International Self-Published Book Awards in the humor category. The great thing about that is that I entered under my own name and did not let my human take any credit, like she usually tries to do. See? The letter is addressed to me only:

I wondered if they had a ceremony, and if I should be preparing an acceptance speech.

But then I started to read the letter…. Wait a minute! I didn’t win! According to them, “Competition was particularly fierce this year and we could only award one grand prize and ten category prizes.” I quickly flipped to the judge’s commentary. They rate you on a scale from 1 (poor) to 5 (excellent). I got a 5 for grammar (of course), and they loved my cover photograph and layout… except for the chapter font, which had “a rather odd, overlapping quality to it that made it hard to read.” My stupid human sent in an old copy of the book before the font was fixed! So as a result I only got a 4 for structure and design. Never mind that she would have missed the deadline if she had waited for the new font — she should have been prepared. I thought I trained her better than that.

My fur is a little ruffled over this whole thing. I think I will let my human take the credit for my loss.