Alys, this is great! As a fellow writer; enterer of competitions; submitter of manuscripts to agents etc, I found this post HUGELY informative and relatable. Like a lot of us, I tend to imagine I'm the only one with a rejection list longer than the longest thing you can think of, and as I approach my 60th year (erk) I wonder where the hell I went wrong with my writing over the previous 40! When I was studying undergrad creative writing (where I got a First class Honours, which I thought might help mentioning when submitting... um ... that's a No) I did a similar thing to you - although not as well because spreadsheets elude me, and on the Writing Short Fiction module, decided, as I was getting good results and feedback in my assignments, that I'd start entering competitions, randomly, I think in cost order because some entry fees are eye-watering) and kept a folder separated into months of deadline and scribbled a note of what/if I'd sent anything to them. Like you, I was surprised over that year to have been longlisted a couple of times, shortlisted and published in anthologies, and won £250 for coming second in the Yeovil Literary Prize.... (I cried, I cannot lie) ... I 'tested' this entry out in another 2 or so short story competitions last year, and didn't even get longlisted with it - so it shows that judges opinions are vastly varied - everything's as subjective as it's always been. Looking forward to reading more from you, in fact I'm considering starting a Substack newlsetter myself! Debs
Alys, this is great! As a fellow writer; enterer of competitions; submitter of manuscripts to agents etc, I found this post HUGELY informative and relatable. Like a lot of us, I tend to imagine I'm the only one with a rejection list longer than the longest thing you can think of, and as I approach my 60th year (erk) I wonder where the hell I went wrong with my writing over the previous 40! When I was studying undergrad creative writing (where I got a First class Honours, which I thought might help mentioning when submitting... um ... that's a No) I did a similar thing to you - although not as well because spreadsheets elude me, and on the Writing Short Fiction module, decided, as I was getting good results and feedback in my assignments, that I'd start entering competitions, randomly, I think in cost order because some entry fees are eye-watering) and kept a folder separated into months of deadline and scribbled a note of what/if I'd sent anything to them. Like you, I was surprised over that year to have been longlisted a couple of times, shortlisted and published in anthologies, and won £250 for coming second in the Yeovil Literary Prize.... (I cried, I cannot lie) ... I 'tested' this entry out in another 2 or so short story competitions last year, and didn't even get longlisted with it - so it shows that judges opinions are vastly varied - everything's as subjective as it's always been. Looking forward to reading more from you, in fact I'm considering starting a Substack newlsetter myself! Debs