Writing Competitions

It struck me at one point to look into writing competitions.  I figured if I were already writing short stories, it isn’t much more effort to submit one to a contest.  It doesn’t really matter if I win anything.  If I get a chance to write half as much as I plan this year, I should have a surplus of material for a while.  It’s not like I’m expecting to get paid for everything out of my keyboard right now.  I thought it might be a fun opportunity as well as a means of getting in front of an audience.    

What I found, however, is that there are often entry fees.  It makes sense really and most of the fees I saw were actually pretty reasonable.  It is enough to make one a little more mindful about sending submissions compulsively though.  I must be honest with myself here, the entry fee money paid for a writing competition might as well have been flushed down the toilet.  Judging a work of creative fiction is undoubtedly a subjective task.  And for all I know, it might all be some giant circle jerk of editors and agents giving awards to their buddies or clients or whatever.  At best, an award in one of these open competitions will have benefited from some random luck.  So, at $30 or $40 a pop, it just doesn’t make sense to randomly toss manuscripts around to anyone who is accepting them.  If, however, I have a short piece that I am particularly pleased with that otherwise might never see the light of day, this seems like a reasonable fee to give it a punchers chance at recognition.

I expect to selectively submit to a few contests by the year’s end.