Writing Club

[admin]

Our current writing competition is open to anyone from anywhere to enter.

The theme for the short story is passion.

The prize is three-fold.
€100 in cash.
Publication on www.askaboutwriting.net and www.writingclub.org websites.
And a year's free membership of Writing Club which allows entry to four more competions FREE of charge.

Maximum word count is 1,800 words.
The closing date is December 16, 2009.
Entry fee is €5 per entry.
Entry fee is waived for members of Writing Club.

A winner will be announced on January 14, 2010

We offer a picture on the website as general guidance.
Bon chance.
http://www.writingclub.org/competition.htm
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[Carol]

Okay, I give in. Even if this makes me sound like a needy, pathetic person, I need to know the winner of the "Passion" short story competition. Please put us out of our misery. The announcement was due today, and even if you haven't been awake since 6.00 am checking your computer (like some needy, pathetic people) you might expect word by now? I can't see anything on the Forum and my inbox is sadly quiet. (By the way, is it me or is it hard to gain access to the Forum at the moment? I usually click on a link to the writers' club which doesn't seem to be there at the moment. I only got here now by devious means.) Am I alone in wanting to know the outcome? Or curious to read to winning one? Surely not. Help, please!


Carol
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Carol

[Carol]

Me again, folks. (Is there anybody out there?)

Please bear with me and have a read of a longish piece I've just written and pasted here. Maybe when you've read it you might want to post a response.

While waiting for the results of the Open Short Story competition to be announced – an experience I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy but, thinking again, might – I decided to write about it to while away the time. I’m posting this also to elicit tales from other members about their competition experiences. Might as well get 2010 off to a start.

At the moment, I don’t know who’s won the competition. I have a vested interest, obviously, as I entered a story. Regardless of the result, it’s a story I felt pleased with when I’d finished with it and it proved to be one of the more enjoyable writing experiences I’ve had. What I’m wondering about here is what other members do after they’ve sent off a competition entry? Do they/you enter many competitions? If so, what kind and why? I tend to use competitions (poetry and short story) as an incentive to get writing. I print off any that interest me that are posted on askaboutwriting each week, as well as others I come across through search engines, writing magazines or other newsletters, like the one from the Southbank poetry library (info@poetrylibrary.org.uk) or those from Poetry Ireland (which lists more than poetry competitions) or The Irish Writers’ Centre. I also write up details of deadlines, entry fees and result dates (when available; sometimes you only get “results by the end of x month…” information.) in my notebook. My folders are full of these good intentions; it’s amazing how much writing time you can kill by such “admin”. I usually end up putting most of them in the recycling when I’m having a clearout. Each page as it falls into the box serves to remind me of what a putter-offer I am and what opportunities I’ve missed and how I’m not taking this writing business seriously enough.

However, sometimes I do follow through and get an entry written and submitted. But I always find the wait for the result interminable. I know the sound advice is to file things away in your head and move on to something else, but I don’t always manage to. If you’re not going to hear for several months ( and I don’t enter too many like that) it’s possible to put it out of your head while working away on other projects. But if the wait isn’t going to be too long, like with askaboutwriting competitions, then I find it’s harder to distract yourself with work. It’s especially difficult, I suppose, if you’re cautiously optimistic about the piece you’ve submitted. I’m not saying I am (was? No, I’ve just checked the website again; still no news.) optimistic about my own story, as, among other reasons, this was an open competition so presumably the entry was larger than normal, but that I do have a little bit of hope for it. That hope stays alive, faint but pursuing, as long as there is no definite new that another’s story has won, yet, conversely, you want an end to it one way or another so that you may swallow your disappointment and move on. Am I alone in going through this? I’d love to hear how others deal with this; the wait, the expectation (or lack of it), the success (or lack of it.)

Another thing I find difficult to deal with is the exclusivity most competitions insist on. Usually, you can’t enter your story/poem/whatever in any other competition while it’s under consideration in one. Because I’m not very prolific (see “admin” above!) I’m always looking for several outlets for the same or similar piece of work and find I’m prevented from doing this because of most competition rules, including askaboutwriting’s. Do people agree with these rules? I know I’ve tried to raise a discussion about this in the past to no avail, but perhaps some members (or competition administrators) might like to share their thoughts on this? I know a solution would be to write more, so that you can enter each competition with a new piece of work, but hey, we’re all recyclers now, yes?! I think it’s unfair of publishers to ask for no simultaneous submissions (which most authors ignore because of long response times) and think the same might apply to competitions. Am I the only one to lie awake at night wondering if a poem or story might have done better in a different competition, if only the submission dates hadn’t overlapped?

In the meantime, still no news of this particular competition, but I’ve already earmarked a couple of others I could submit my story to, but, under the prevailing rules, will have to choose which one. It’s a gamble, isn’t it/? Maybe I should just stop entering competitions and work full-time on my long-term projects. That would get rid of one displacement activity, wouldn’t it?

I’m posting this before the result is announced (yes, I’ve checked again) and may regret my honesty, but I’d be interested in people’s responses. We need to get the Forum up and running again…

Happy New Year to all.
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Carol

[Kate]

Hello Carol

Just a quick note to say that I've read your comments and they ring all sorts of bells with me. I'm shutting down my PC after a mamouth (8h) teleconference, but tomorrow morning is timetabled in my diary for short story activities (yes, really) so I'll get back to you then.
Talk soon, Kate
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Visit my website to see a selection of my writing and links to published work: http://www.elizabethducie.co.uk

[Kate]

Hi Carol

What a cry from the heart - and how familiar to other writers. You raise lots of questions. I've tried to give my thoughts on most of them.

I try to enter at least one competition per month. My reasons are various: as an exercise in writing to a specific trigger; as a possible means of getting my work ‘out there’; for the ‘thrill of the chase’. I’ve also got quite a large portfolio of stories which are either partly written or completed, for which I’d like to find a home. I’m currently working my way through them, trying to find suitable competitions for them. (There is a view that you should always write competition entries from scratch, but I don’t subscribe to that – if the theme fits, why not use it.) At present, I generally go for free competitions and never pay more than £6 entry fee – you could spend a fortune on fees if you entered everything around – and I’d like to build up a bit of a track record before I start investing too much in entries.

I have an Excel spreadsheet in which I collect lists of potential competitions. I collect them via Ask about Writing, Funds for Writers, Writers’ News, and Mslexia etc. I record the same details as you. Then, on a monthly basis, I decide which one I’m going to enter and go for it (well, that’s the intention, anyway).

Your comment about admin killing time is so true. We call it ‘sharpening your pencils’ – remember the times when you were supposed to be getting down to homework or revision – and all your pencils were blunt, or your satchel needed cleaning out? These days, you will see references from many writers about how clean their ovens are – we all have our favourite displacement activities.

No, you are not alone in your ‘result syndrome’. I also try to forget all about it, but it really is very difficult. When I’ve entered for Writing Club competitions, I’ve also spent half the morning logging on to check for announcements (so come on Brendon, put us out of our misery!). I believe the key (or one of them) is to have lots of different things out there, so you don’t concentrate on just one. Many people have said that winning competitions (or getting accepted for a magazine) is not only about your own writing. It’s about what else has been submitted, who’s reading the entries/submissions, what sort of a mood they are in etc. In other words, even if you can write well, there is a huge amount of luck in getting accepted. So, the more entries/submissions you have out there, the more chance there is of getting accepted. (Think of Premium Bonds – you win reasonably regularly if you have a big slug of bonds – the 4 my parents bought me when I was born have never won.)

You will also hear people say that something should never sit on your desk for more than 24 hours. Once you know it’s not been accepted, get it back out there for something else.

I do believe in the exclusivity rule; otherwise, there would be all sorts of problems if something won in more than one competition at a time. However, I believe the organisers should always give a clear statement of when results will be announced, with an actual date, so we have the option of moving on. Many competitions do that – many others do not.

As for stopping entering competitions and working on long-term projects, that’s a question only you can answer. Personally, I find it a bit of fun among the more serious projects – most of my writing is technical, non-fiction. One thing I have found recently is that trying to do too many things at once results in nothing being completed satisfactorily (talk about stating the bleeding obvious!). So I’ve started treating all my writing (including short stories) as serious work projects, given them priorities and scheduled time in the diary for each. This is why I’m now going to stop wittering on and get down to my half-day of working on ‘short stories’. Yes, it really is entered in the diary. To prove I’m keeping to it – I’ll post again later today, to tell you how I got on.

OK, I'm off now - anyone else got any views on all this?

Kind regards, Kate
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Visit my website to see a selection of my writing and links to published work: http://www.elizabethducie.co.uk

[Carol]

Thanks, Kate, for taking the time to reply. And good luck with your day's work! God, you're so organised. I'm going to post some thoughts elswhere in the forum in the hope someone else out there might be listening.

Cheers for now,
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Carol

[Kate]

OK, morning over. What did I achieve? Well, I did lots of admin (listing suitable competitions and researching magazine guidelines), had two Skype converstaions about potential projects and got the central heating fixed (again).

However, I also sent in one submission for online publication and wrote 700 words of the first draft of a new story.

Not quite as productive as I might like, but better than sitting at the PC staring at a blank page.

Talk soon, Kate
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Visit my website to see a selection of my writing and links to published work: http://www.elizabethducie.co.uk

[Carol]

Jeez, I call that being very productive! Fantastic. Nothing to report my end, as it's been one of my domestic days. I try to keep them separate from my writing days, but they often spill over to one another.

Hope your heating is ok!
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Carol

[Carol]

Have just seen that my story has been posted as the winner. Am very relieved that the wait is over and that it was worth it in the end. Thank you, Writing Club; I needed the encouragement.

Best wishes to all,
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Carol

[Kate]

Well done Carol - it has a great pace to it - I found myself reading it faster and faster, waiting for something explosive to happen. The fact that is hasn't (so far) makes it all the more powerful.

Talk soon, Kate
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Visit my website to see a selection of my writing and links to published work: http://www.elizabethducie.co.uk

[johnt]

Congrats Carol!
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johnt

[Fiona Mc]

Congratulations, Carol. Having worked in the 'system' I was able to put a face, in fact more than one face, to your 'heroine' which made the story all the more enjoyable for me. I feel as if I want to know more.

Fiona.
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Good to be back.

[Carol]

Thanks, kate, John and Fiona,

Yes, I do want to write more about Sorcha, which is why I put in the deliberate mistake of her leaving the blinds open... I have a feeling she could grow up to be a serial killer!

Cjeers,
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Carol

[Carol]

Sorry, that should have been "cheers"!
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Carol