I've lost the will to live, which means I can't bring myself to black out the information on all these contest notifications. So, instead, I'd just like to post as is and congratulate all the winners.
I hate contests. I tell my "writing class students" to leave them alone, unless they just can't help themselves.
Sure, some of them are fun, but, if they ask for a fee, I pass. If it's free, I may think about it if I happen to have something lying around that I don't know what to do with.
I'd rather straight submit - to go through Duotrope Digest, or google, or whatever, to find magazines and ezines to fit what I have or what I want to write.
I'm not saying contests are evil or wrong - I just don't do them any longer.
And it's not because I haven't won-although I've not *laughing* I've won some "honorable mentions" and when you think out of thousands how I was at least in the top five or ten, that's not so bad....more it's the paying for it that bothers me...you paying someone to publish your work.
Now, the payout can be substantial, and that's the draw. If you pay $15 or $20 for a contest fee and win $200 or whatever--well!
Anyway--I like to use the American Idol analogy---think about it---out of those thousands and thousands of singers, only a few get through--you don't know what singer slips through the cracks, maybe the judges were tired and cranky, maybe the singer was nervous and messed up their one chance, even though they really are good--or in the case of Clay Aiken-he was actually sent home early on and called back when someone else was disqualified-and then he won! If that one person hadn't of been disqualified, no one would have heard from him again, most probably.
Two judges like the singer, one doesn't, or the other way around --it's all subjective, all relative, all sometimes up to chance and the whim of someone's mood (although I do most times agree with Simon Cowell -at least when I was watching AI regularly).
I'm ramling again and my novel waits for me - must go work on my revisions!
2 comments:
I hate contests. I tell my "writing class students" to leave them alone, unless they just can't help themselves.
Sure, some of them are fun, but, if they ask for a fee, I pass. If it's free, I may think about it if I happen to have something lying around that I don't know what to do with.
I'd rather straight submit - to go through Duotrope Digest, or google, or whatever, to find magazines and ezines to fit what I have or what I want to write.
I'm not saying contests are evil or wrong - I just don't do them any longer.
And it's not because I haven't won-although I've not *laughing* I've won some "honorable mentions" and when you think out of thousands how I was at least in the top five or ten, that's not so bad....more it's the paying for it that bothers me...you paying someone to publish your work.
Now, the payout can be substantial, and that's the draw. If you pay $15 or $20 for a contest fee and win $200 or whatever--well!
Anyway--I like to use the American Idol analogy---think about it---out of those thousands and thousands of singers, only a few get through--you don't know what singer slips through the cracks, maybe the judges were tired and cranky, maybe the singer was nervous and messed up their one chance, even though they really are good--or in the case of Clay Aiken-he was actually sent home early on and called back when someone else was disqualified-and then he won! If that one person hadn't of been disqualified, no one would have heard from him again, most probably.
Two judges like the singer, one doesn't, or the other way around --it's all subjective, all relative, all sometimes up to chance and the whim of someone's mood (although I do most times agree with Simon Cowell -at least when I was watching AI regularly).
I'm ramling again and my novel waits for me - must go work on my revisions!
Why does paying to enter a writing contest feel so much to me like buying scratch tickets? Being a pessimist, I don't do either.
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