I was thinking today about Schrodinger's Cat, the thought experiment in quantum theory -- stay with me on this, please -- as it might apply to my entry into Poisoned Pen Press' Discover Mystery contest.
As with Schrodinger's experiment (and this is the short version, and I hope I get this correctly), the live cat is placed in a sealed steel box that also contains a vial of acid. If the vial breaks, the cat dies. But since we cannot observe anything inside the steel box, according to quantum theory, the cat is both alive AND dead in what is known as superpostion of states. When we open the box, the superposition is lost and we know if the cat is dead or alive. In essence, there is no single outcome unless it is observed.
I entered the Discover Mystery contest months ago, and the winner will win a small cash prize and a publishing contract with Poisoned Pen Press, a small indie publisher in the mystery genre. They specialize in finding new talent and new voices in the genre (which sounds a lot like me, by the way). The submission period ended on April 30 -- they had nearly 200 entries -- and Poisoned Pen hoped to declare a winner by the end of May.
We are a little past the middle of the month and there hasn't been a word. And I am still sitting on pins and needles. I sometimes look at my entry, which is An Untidy Affair, and some days all I see are its strengths and other days all I see are its potential weaknesses. Emotionally, I am all over the way.
But today I thought of Schrodinger's Cat. Since the announcement of the winner hasn't been made, and in any event, I haven't observed an outcome, I can say I have both win and lost the contest. And if I stay with having won, I make my life a lot happier.
So that's what I'm going to do, choose the happier choice. And it should serve me well, at least until someone opens that damned box and looks upon that stupid cat.
Thanks for reading and don't give up on writing.
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