Why Writing Contests Are Like Foreplay

I haven’t entered any contests yet, but I’ve been toying with the idea in the past week or so. Every time I look at RWA’s monthly newsletter, I find another contest that requires only the first 25 pages of your manuscript. They offer all kinds of enticements: valuable feedback, cash prizes, notoriety, and the possibility of having your work read by people in the business. And, the story doesn’t even have to be completed if you only send the beginning. I’ve got plenty of beginnings!

It sounds like writer’s heaven to me.

If you don’t win, it sounds like it could maybe leave you with feedback (maybe useful, maybe not), less money in your pocket, the same lack of exposure, and that horrible feeling of being a loser because now people in the business saw what you are left believing to be a giant pile of crap with your name all over it.

And, that my friends, sounds like writer’s hell.

That’s why contests remind me of foreplay. The nice dinner, the movie, and even some heavy petting, can still give no firm indication of what the feature presentation will hold in store. The package might look provocative, but that doesn’t guarantee a satisfactory end result.

Although, if I mention the fact that most contests cost money (in some cases a lot of money) and try to make that leap to my analogy, I flirt with prostitution parallels and well, that’s nowhere I wanna go. So, consider simile over.

I know that many people have gotten their start from contests. Requests for fulls or partials, even book deals from judges. There are also ways to polish up your work to make it contest ready. But, I’m not certain it fits my goals right now.

Any experienced wenches out there? (Boy that sounded dirty). What have you found to be the upsides and the downsides to contests? Any war stories/sage advice? If you’re not a writer, ever won anything good? (I won a Senseo coffeemaker once. They said I had to pay for shipping and handling though. I opted out. Hey, that hardly feels free to me.)

Cat O Nine Tip of the Day: Good Lord Deliver Us!

Halloween is upon us; therefore, we must be more careful of things that go bump in the night. When I'm not pursuing my freedom upon the seas, I can be found at home in Scotland, snugged up to a brawn Highlander, finding out what he wears beneath his kilt. Leave it to that bonnie nation to make a clever quote, part Halloween, part prayer--and upon which this blog is focused today:

From ghoulies and ghosties and long leggety beasties and things that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!
~Scottish saying

But I'm never satisfied with just one version of this quotation, much like Andrew Jackson was never satisfied with just one way to spell a word. So I've come up with these alternate version. What do you think?

To charmers and pirates and long leggety libertines and handsome rogues that go bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!

~Wench saying

From hunters and enemies and long leggety Krakens and things that go bump in the sea, Good Lord, deliver us!

~Pirate saying

To rum stores and lost booties and long leggety wenches and beds where we might bump in the night, Good Lord, deliver us!

~Naughty pirate saying

From writer’s block and plot holes and irate, yelling editors and the slush pile from whence there is no hope of being published, Good Lord, deliver us!

~writer’s saying

I have a Halloween Treat (Pirate Loot) to send one of our guests who puts their own personal spin on that beloved Scottish saying.