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Luck and Writing Contests
By Grace Tierney
Do you believe in luck? Lady Luck writes under the pseudonym of Destiny and
writers desire her attention just as much as gamblers. I recently read a
novel (by Christopher Brookmyre) which debunked the existence of such things
and I do tend to agree with a woman who told me last night that "you make
your own luck". For writers that's certainly true. So, how do you make
yourself lucky when it comes to earning a writing income from writing
contests?
The key is to find the contest that suits you and your writing. There's no
point in a literary fiction writer entering a contest for seasonal
limericks, and there's no point in a romance junkie trying to win a
non-fiction prize. That much is obvious. Where it gets trickier is in
finding the perfect contest for your writing. That perfect contest may not
exist, but you should be able to gather a shortlist of competitions whose
requirements match your writing in terms of style, length and other entry
requirements. The trick (if you can call it that) is to gather information
on as many contests as possible and then whittle out the ones that don't
match your work.
So where do you start?
Contests are advertised more than you think, after all there's nothing more
disheartening than running a contest that nobody enters. Start locally -
check your local writing group, the arts column in local newspapers, your
library, writing magazines, college notice-boards, the Web site of your
region's arts authority. Then think laterally but still keep it local - are
there any history festivals, literary festivals, theatre festivals anywhere
near you? You may well discover that there’s a writing contest being run in
your own town and it is always nice to support your local arts, isn’t it?
Now it's time to go national and international. Literary magazines and
e-zines are great sources. The Web sites of your favorite publishers often
use contests to find new writers amongst their loyal readers (and the pay
can be particularly good on these ones). A good 80% of contests I've
uncovered in five years of research on the topic were open to entries from
countries other than their own, so remember to look beyond your own borders
for possible competitions. Your being "foreign" in outlook or style may be
just the edge you need to win.
Venture online in search of contests and expect to be swamped, here's a
short listing of venues which list contests regularly. As always, exercise
your own common sense when using information from the Web.
·
www.fundsforwriters.com/contests.htm
· www.absolutewrite.com
·
www.romancejunkies.comwww.winningwriters.com
·
www.newpages.comwww.writers-editors.com/Writers/Contests/contests.htm
·
www.twnn.comwww.prizemagic.co.uk/html/writing_comps.htm
·
www.writingcorner.com/contests/contest-index.htm
·
www.freelancewriting.com/writingcontests.php
There are even forums and online groups dedicated solely to contest
listings -
·
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conpo/
·
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/writingcontests/
·
www.critiquecircle.com/forums.asp
How do you usually approach writing contests? Do you write something
first and then try to find a contest that it fits? Or do you select a
contest and then write something specifically for it? I've done both and had
greater success with the second approach. Contest judges can spot a mile off
when something has been shoe-horned to fit their requirements. But of course
it depends on how large your pile is of "writing waiting for a home".
Just remember to write your best words, follow the entry guidelines
carefully and enter the contest which matches you best, and you should have
plenty of luck. Should you buy a lottery ticket? Or just enter a writing
contest. Either way, may writer's luck be with you this week.
Bio -
Grace Tierney ( www.gracetierney.com
) is a freelance writer living in rural
Ireland. Her fiction and non-fiction has been published internationally in
magazines, anthologies, online media, newspapers, and coffee tins. Grace has
published two books - “Positive Thoughts for Writers” (help for the writer’s
soul every day of the year) and "The Writing Contest Expert's Guide to
Fiction Contests" (more than 200 contests for flash fiction to novels) which
are available at
www.lulu.com/gracetierney . She's currently compiling the
remaining books in this series about writing contests, based on her
long-running contest column at Writer Online.
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