I have been a scholar for eight months and have completed first draft of my very first novel.
I would like to submit the manuscript to a competition and I would like to have the right mindset before I submit it.

In reality, I have absolutely no control on whether or not my novel will win because I cannot know whether the judges will like it or not.
So I cannot think that I will win or that they will like it. I can only think that I am writing the best novel that I can as the writer that I am who writes her very first novel, and I can control submitting it on time for the deadline.
Only these thoughts don’t feel good, because I feel powerless.

Does it make sense to think of it this way?