April 13, 2012

My First Win! And How I did It . . .

Earlier in the week I found out that I won my very first writing contest. I am not going to lie--winning feels pretty spectacular. At this point, I've written one novel (which you see listed above), and I'm in progress on my second . . . and this is the first very small sign that I may not be wasting my time.

Note, of course I say MAY NOT, because who am I to say what will happen? All I know is that a little validation goes a long way towards believing in the possibility that you will one day produce works worth reading, or words readers will linger over. That day is a ways off, certainly. But I believe it exists.

With less than a thousand pages under my belt, I do not profess much expertise on writing. I can only recommend that you write, and when you see a contest that gives you pause, enter it. There is no winning if you do not enter. And there are many, many contests out there. You can find them on popular writing community websites, and by following publishing people on Twitter. Some of them, like the one I entered on Figment, are quick flash fiction contests that take little time, but are great exercise for the brain.

Again, there is no winning if you do not enter! So DO IT!

Here are some sites/contests to check out:

http://www.scribophile.com - many short contests currently, all free
http://dailyfig.figment.com/category/contests/ - oriented to young writers, but offer great quick prompts
http://www.familycircle.com/family-fun/fiction/fiction-contest-rules-2012/
http://askwendy.wordpress.com/ - wendy lists tons of contests each month

4 comments:

  1. Congrats on the win!

    This is great advice! I think I'll actually try my hand at one of these contests and see where it goes! Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. AND . . . about 5 minutes after I posted this I received an email that my (admittedly premature and terrible) first page was critiqued on Julie Coulter Bellon's blog--by an actual editor--er, Shreditor!

    That's another example of me DOING IT. Because, well, that's what I need to do right now. I read Julie's blog, I liked her style and the Shreditor's thorough responses, and I thought, why not? The first novel may be a bit of a warm-up. What's important is using that writing to LEARN as much as possible about writing. So I sent it in for feedback, and gained some great insight.

    http://ldswritermom.blogspot.com/2012/04/first-page-friday_13.html

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great news - followed you over from Query Goblin. Nice blog. Now to Shreditor.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nice to meet you! I just checked out your blog -- wow! Thailand! Asia for 8 years -- sounds like you have a lot to write about. I'm following you now, and look forward to reading about your publishing journey as well. It's a rabbit hole, eh?

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...