I recently served as a judge for a writing contest. Unbeknownst to me at the time, I was the final judge. I wasn't just selecting which short stories went on to the next level... I was picking the winners.

This is the second time I served as a judge for a writing contest. The first time was last year, for the Pacific Northwest Writers Association conference (PNWA). I wasn't a final judge that time, thank goodness. This year, it is for a different organization (but I shan't discuss details since the contest isn't officially over yet). Both experiences have been a major learning experience for me.

If you are a writer and you submit your work for consideration, here are a few things I learned by being a judge:

1) Write well. But, you already knew that. If you don't write well, you won't win.

2) Eight out of ten entries are awful. So, writing well gives you a big advantage.

3) Alas, two out of every ten entries are great, so writing well isn't enough. You know what else matters? The tastes of the judge who arbitrarily is selected to go through the pile where your submission happens to land. The mood of that judge on that day. And then...

4) There are some very tough calls. It can, and often does, come down to "I have three excellent stories for the last slot on the winners' circle, but I can only choose one." That kind of decision is excruciating to a judge. But, there's no science to how that decision will be made. You've cleared the first few hurdles... you've written well, you fit the judges' tastes, and your piece happens to fit with the mood of the judge who is reviewing it. But.

But.

You're playing musical chairs with one or two other excellent pieces, and there's only one chair left. Do you win? Depends upon when the music stops and where you are at the time that happens. It has little to do with your chair-snatching skills.

In short, that final decision between winning the contest and not winning can be pretty arbitrary, even if your work is excellent.

On the one hand, this is a message of hope. If you submitted and didn't win, that doesn't mean you weren't good enough to win. It's entirely possible that you made it to that last decision and luck simply didn't favor you on that occasion.

On the other hand, it's a message of disquiet. That while winning is worth something -- while it may validate that you're *among* the best -- it does not establish that you *are* the best. And at the same time, it's disquieting to know that you may well be amazingly good, but that a simple matter of whim or taste could keep you out of the winners' circle.

I dunno. I'm still going to submit to writing contests here and there. But I'm not so sure whether I want to judge so often.