Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The Thing About Contests

I don't enter contests much, unless they're scholarship-based. There are many different opinions about contests- they're fab, they're fly, they're flat- but I stay away from them for a couple reasons.
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There's likely to be an entry fee, and I'm in a perpetual state of being broke. Unless I've published something. Contests also have specific guidelines (stories about mad cats celebrating Kwaanza) and I find it hard to go that specific (mad cat celebrations in general are OK.) Contests have concrete deadlines and that's a good thing, but in the long run, contests are harder to put on query bios. I prefer straight-out working with an editor.
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What do you think?

NEXT WEEK: Megan Kelley Hall will be joining us for Wednesday Wonderfulness to talk about her spooky-and-acclaimed debut, Sisters of Misery

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm not that into contests unless they're pretty open-ended. Like you, I think it's pretty difficult to fit into those specific guidelines. I also find that writing for a contest really drains the fun out of it, because it's so structured.