It's very validating when you are new in the industry to get awards. It boosts your self-esteem.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Awards are great, as you get to meet up with friends and colleagues from your industry - a sort of reunion.
Submitting myself for awards feels like a weird kind of horn-blowing that's not comfortable for me. I'm really happy when someone likes my work, but I don't like marketing myself, putting myself on display.
Awards can give you a tremendous amount of encouragement to keep getting better, no matter how young or old you are.
Some people work hard in this business and become really popular, really big stars but they never receive an award from within the business. Somehow, when your colleagues and friends believe in you to the point of handing you an award it means so much more.
Awards mean absolutely nothing if you don't get it. If you do get it, they're the best thing in the world.
You spend most of your life working and trying to hone your craft, working on your chops, working on your writing, and you don't really think about accolades. Then you get a bit older and they start coming your way. It's a nice pat on the back.
Except that awards are competitive, which is a negative thing, they are wonderful for singling out deserving individuals and bringing their work to the attention of many potential readers who might otherwise have been totally unaware of them.
Do awards change careers? Well, I haven't heard of many stories where that's the case. It's a fun excuse to meet colleagues and celebrate people who've done well that year in certain people's eyes, and it's nothing more than that.
Awards can't be what's important in your life. Because that only affects you in a sense. Life is so much more than that: It's your family and your friends and that sort of thing.
When you're doing a job, you go out there and do it to the best of your ability and you don't think about awards and things like that.