I love entering writing contests. Early on in my writing career, someone told
me my work would get more attention if I already had something published. It could be anything, they said. Enter a contest, they said.
That was when it began.
I sent a short story to the now defunct Writers’ Journal magazine. Writers’ Journal was great. It offered a variety of contests and
published the winners. For one
particular contest (“Write to Win!”) you had to write a short story using a
prompt. I decided this was a good place
to start since the direction had already been provided. The prompt I used was “The lights went
out….”.
It was a great prompt.
My fingers flew over the keyboard until I realized I’d nearly exceed the
limit on my word count and I was only halfway through the story. Eventually I had to edit out about 80% of
what I’d written. I whittled it down as
far as I could, but had very little left to work with by the end.
The ending sucked. I
cringe when I read it now. My husband
looked confused when he read it. “That’s
it?” he asked. “It ended a
little….abruptly.”
He was being kind.
The ending wasn’t abrupt. It was
like taking a freaking leap off a cliff.
It was ridiculous.
I’d written it in a few hours and sent it in on the last
possible day. It was too late to fix
it. It was already in the mail. I shrugged and basically forgot about it.
A few months later, I’d just gotten home from a day at the
pool with my three boys. We were still
in our damp bathing suits, a little high on sno-cones and worn out from being in the hot sun. I grabbed the
mail on the way into the house, and I noticed a copy of Writers’ Journal in the mailbox.
I was confused. I
didn’t subscribe to Writers’ Journal. I bought it in the grocery store when it came
out quarterly. I decided I must have
subscribed and forgotten (not uncommon since I have the short term memory of a
gnat). I opening the magazine and leafed
through it, still in my soggy bathing suit.
My kids were running around, attacking each other with Nerf guns or some
other such thing. I was ignoring them,
because with three boys if I didn’t ignore most of the running around and
hitting each other with projectiles I would go mad.
And that was when I saw it.
My name on the page. My words in
print. I’d won. My stupid little story with the horrible
ending had won first place. It was one
of the most exciting moments of my life.
My kids were terrified, mostly because I was screaming, but
not at them. They froze in the middle of
their Nerf gun battle (which had morphed at some point into a wrestling match).
“Mommy, are you okay?”
Later I realized that screaming like a crazy person might be
an effective tool in getting them to stop before they killed each other, but
I’ve never been able to replicate the exact sound I made that day. It wasn’t human. I screamed so much I was actually
hoarse. And that was when the addiction
began.
Out of the seven stories I’d entered into Writers’ Journal, I won four times. The other wins involved less screaming and
more happy dancing around the kitchen. One
of those stories (“Pretty Is”) won third place in a science fiction contest and
became the basis for a young adult novel.
I like contests.
Contests are fun (when I win, at least).
But there are a few things you should know before you enter. These are contest caveats.
1. Contests have fees. Often the prize for entering is only slightly
more than the entry fee, and the bigger the contest, the slimmer your chance of
winning. Don’t enter if you are purely
doing it for the chance of winning the $25 grand prize and can barely afford
the $15 entry fee. Find a contest that
doesn’t charge a fee (like Amazon’s Breakthrough Novel Award Contest), and enter that
instead.
2. Try local contests first. I won a prize at the first writing conference
I ever attended (Pennwriters) and it was one of the happiest days of my
life. I did not expect to win, but there
is special joy in being found worthy when judged by your peers. Pennwriters offers several contests, Novel
Beginnings, Non-Fiction, Poetry, and Short Story. The winners are announced at their yearly
conference, which is one of the best conferences around. Find something like Pennwriters and enter it.
(www.pennwriters.org)
3. When the judges provide feedback, use it. This is one of the best parts about losing a
contest, getting another set of eyes to look at your work and give you advice. Use that feedback wisely, though. Print it out.
Look over it carefully. Choose
what you want to use and discard the rest.
This is your book. Make it as
good as you can, but never lose sight of what you are doing.
4. Don’t obsess over negative feedback. If every single judge tells you that your
work is crap, it most probably is crap and you should listen. But that is normally not the case. Most judges are fair and try to be helpful. Every once in a while, you get a rogue, nasty
judge who rips your work apart and leaves your heart in shreds, too. Read what they have to say. Decide whether or not it’s true, and move
on. Listen, but have confidence in your own ability.
5. Be thankful.
Often you are given the opportunity to write thank you notes to the
judges. You may have to swallow your
pride to thank a judge who seemed to be purposefully mean, but do it
anyway. I recently thanked a judge who
loved my book (easy to do).
She wrote back, and we became friends.
I feel like I’ve met a kindred spirit just because I wrote that little
thank you note.
6. Try and try again. Winning a contest won’t necessarily mean your
book will be published, but it might put it in front of the right people. A friend of mine was recently named a
finalist in YARWA’s Rosemary Contest.
She was delighted, not only because it was super awesome that she made
it to the finals, but also because the judge was an editor from her dream
publisher. Look at who will be judging
these contests. If one of the judges is
an agent or an editor you’d really like to work with, it’s a chance to get your
work in front of them.
Contests are not for everyone. Some people consider them worthless, but I
completely disagree. Any chance I have
to share what I’ve written is exciting for me, but I have a naturally positive
disposition and I’m really good at ignoring negativity (some people call it
delusional, I call it being an optimist).
Know before you enter that you may not get the results you were hoping
for and just do your best. You might be
surprised. You might get published. You might make a new friend or a valuable
contact.
What do you have to lose?
