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The original was posted on /r/tifu by /u/spacesailingfrog on 2024-09-14 17:23:46+00:00.

I, 35m, am a truck driver. I do hobbies on the side, like writing. Mid-year I took some time off for health reasons, finished up my book and started a second. To motivate myself, I entered the second novel into an International book contest. I proceeded to work on it, but it fell off when I went back to work. I deleted all my social media since it occupies too much time whilst on the truck and honestly, the writing community on X is horrendous.

I didn’t forget about the contest, I checked my email periodically, completely misremembering I used a separate writer handle for those emails.

Fast forward to yesterday, four months since I submitted. On a whim (trying to remember my discord handle) I logged into said email. Not only did I make the top 40, but I also made the top 10. Ten days prior, was an email from one of the organisers asking about me and my book. I obviously reply immediately with deep apologies, asking if I missed the cut-off, and I get a form email in reply saying they don’t reply on weekends.

Okay, I think, I will finish it up this weekend and email it Sunday night.

But the entire thing seems off to me. The long list emails states a requirement for an additional 12k words (the entry was 5k), which I obviously never sent. I didn’t even see the email until last night. How could I have possibly gone onto the finals? I am bamboozled, flummoxed, absolutely astounded (and elated) about this turn of events. Even without winning, the exposure of getting my work in front of editors and agents is priceless.

I spent seven hours last night editing and writing.

This morning, I wake up to an email telling me that they had to withdraw me. Understandable, as the winner is announced on 1 October. But when I asked for an explanation of how this could have happened at all, the representative implied that I had been present in Zoom meetings (?) and responded to some sort of group messaging. (She also called me multiple times early morning without leaving a message, which I wrote off as spam. It’s a foreign country trying to call me.)

I have yet to receive an explanation, and can only assume it’s a weird misunderstanding. Likely someone else with a similar book missed the opportunity that IFU with. Right? There is no sane reason why my mere 5k would be in the running with nine other entries with 12k from the second submission. I shouldn’t even have been in the running when I didn’t respond to that email.

I apologised profusely whilst trying to get any sort of answers. I feel like more of a failure than ever, and all because I never checked an email account I forgot about.

The only silver lining is that I know my writing is at least worth something, and I can list top ten on (said contest) on my query letters to agents going forward.

I talked it over with my partner, and he was supportive, but I mean… IFU. Hard. It could have led to amazing things. I still believe in this book (much better than my first) and plan on querying it. Maybe it will still land me an agent and I can stop doing this job I honestly hate. Or maybe I had a mere twelve hours of what it must feel like for someone to be successful.

TL;DR: I forgot about an entire email account and missed the opportunity for an international writing contest.