I don’t enjoy competition. Paradoxically, I do enjoy competing. When you’re competing, you push yourself and push yourself and watch as your skills improve. It’s the stuff that comes after the skill building that sucks. A competition pits you against your friends and peers. Instead of celebrating successes, you become adversaries, rooting for one another’s failure. It’s unnecessary conflict, and it’s the reason I don’t submit my writing to local competitions.

Back in February, a friend of mine convinced me to take a moon shot. The Utah Book Awards. It was such a large competition that I wouldn’t recognize the names of the majority of my opponents. And what were the chances I’d be chosen, anyway?

It’s my first ever writing honor. The Human Countermove has been selected as one of Utah’s Five Notable Reads in Speculative Fiction for 2026 and is in competition to win the grand prize. I was wrong about not knowing my competitors, too. My work is up against some of the biggest names in Utah. Brandon Sanderson, Bryan Young, CK Turner, and Robyn Dabney.

A Healthy Ambition

When I heard the news, I got so excited I forgot to reply to the email. It’s been torture keeping this secret to myself. But ever since the announcement was made, I’ve been thinking a lot about the future.

I used to struggle with ambition. I was a high-performing student and a high-performing employee. If there was a grade to earn or a task to be done, I insisted on being the one to do it. But after years of striving, I realized something. My work didn’t satisfy. When I look back, the cause is clear. I wasn’t just ambitious, I was insatiable. I wanted an indefinable ‘more’ for more’s sake, and nothing less than more would do. Some might call it FOMO. At one point, a boss of mine was projecting my future earnings. He told me my salary would cap at more than double the rate I was being paid. When he asked if it was enough, I couldn’t answer him. How could I? A salary cap was anathema to my ‘more, more, more’ philosophy.

That period of my life has thankfully passed. These days, I find myself content. There’s plenty of happiness in the little moments. When I’m eating a bowl of oatmeal in a sunbeam, I’m at peace. When I’m on a walk around the park, I’m happy. ‘More’ doesn’t come into it. The present satisfies me just fine.

That said, a part of me loves the journey of self-growth. You could call it ambition if you wanted. Sometimes I think it’s just our in-built desire to make use of the precious time we’ve been given. If I’m of sound mind and strong body, then what’s there to do but work hard and contribute to the common good?

So I’m ambitious again. Not for myself, not for ‘more’, but to keep busy and contribute to the world. I still find those moments of contentment, but I also find joy in the pride of a job well done and a day’s work writing to the best of my ability.

Climbing The Writing Ladder

When you release a book, it’s hard to tell if it’s any good. It took me four months to gain any confidence in mine. The biggest signal of the book’s quality was that half of my friends and most of my extended family had read it from cover-to-cover. When they came to talk to me about it, they were excited, engaged, and eager to discuss. One of my best friends has now read The Human Countermove three times. I’m told that’s a rarity.

Since publishing, I’ve written a couple more unreleased books and submitted a few short stories for local anthologies. But every once in a while, I write a story that crackles. It feels fresh in a way totally unlike my past writing, and I start to wonder. Should I be saving those ‘crackling’ stories for a more competitive contest? This award has confirmed my suspicions.

I’ve always imagined the skill of writing as a pyramid. The better you get, the higher you climb on the pyramids tiers and the better your peers become. I organize the pyramid in the same manner as sports teams and performing clubs. City -> County -> State -> Region -> National -> International.

I use this system not to compare myself to others, but because I want to improve as a writer. The best way to grow is to surround yourself with people at, or slightly above your own skill level. What better way is there to learn than to lose against a more practiced peer?

Room to Grow

My old approach to short story submissions was scattered. I’d submit to a few local contests a year based on word of mouth. I’m now pivoting to a higher competition level. My targets are the contests with hundreds of submitters and long histories. I’m pushing my writing to its limit. Art is always subjective, but technique can be sharpened to a point.

I’m experimenting, too. Every story I write is pulled from a different era of the novel writing movement. Often I don’t even know if the story will make sense until it’s on the page.

For me, ambition in writing isn’t about accolades, it’s about testing new ideas on the page and offering those experiments to the contest judges for honest feedback. I don’t have a goal in mind, I’m sharpening my craft because I enjoy the process of sharpening.

The Present

Whenever a friend reads about my award, they send me a text along the lines of, “YOU’RE UP AGAINST BRANDON SANDERSON??!?”

In a faux-macho voice, I respond, “Dude’s washed. I’m sending him home.”

It’s all in jest. For me, being included on a list with people as talented as Brandon Sanderson, or Bryan Young, an author I know personally and hugely respect, is a bigger achievement than I could have imagined receiving at this stage of my career. I’m treating it like a step forward into something new.

Thank you to all my readers for following my journey so far. There’s a long way to go, and so much more for me to learn. I promise you now that I’m nowhere near done learning, and nowhere near done writing.