Contests and Other Things Fun
The last few days have been interesting ones at Chez Young. Yesterday one of my Haiku poems was placed among the five finalists of a Haiku Poetry Challenge at Khara House’s website “Our Lost Jungle.” That was exciting. My Haiku poem stood with poems from four other marvelous poets, all of whom I’ve admired for a long time.
Today, my inbox held contests, challenges, and Calls for Submission from websites and publishers of varied types, no few of which were for poetry.
The first was an easy contest from the sense of an entry. It was a give-away contest by J.L. Spelbring (ebysswriter). The prize for this contest was multi-faceted. And you betcha, I’m entered in this one and gladly. will get copies of Dan Cohen’s book “Masters of the Veil,” either in paperback or PDF, and a chance at a B&N gift card at the end of summer.
The first Calls for Submission came from Robert E. Brewer of Writer’s Digest fame. Okay, so I’m a chump. You guessed it; I’m going for one of these slots, too. Robert’s looking for both how-to articles for the 2014 edition of Writer’s Market. He also calls for poetry to grace that year’s Poet’s Market. Call me an over-achiever. That’s okay. I am, and I’ll submit here, too. I do write poetry, after all.
To top off all the contests, challenges, and submission calls was Jane Freidman’s Newsletter “Electric Speed” which gave me great writer/reader tools to check out in my leisure time. How great is that?
With all of this going on, I’m going to be one crazy writer trying to keep up. My book of poetry “The Moon Sees All” is the in the hands of my beta readers, who are getting their responses and critiques back to me throughout this month. I’ll have that to finish off next month before going out to agents/publishers, That excites me as much as anything else.
For all of those writers out there who think they can’t compete, I ask this: how do you know? Have you don’t much of it? If the answer is “NO,” you might be short-changing yourself and your abilities. Remember: the only sure way to fail at something is to never do it. Be a doer, even if you think you can’t be good at it. Until you do, you can’t know.
Have a great weekend, peeps. Soak up the atmosphere wherever you are, smile at yourself as much as you do at others, and do something different with an hour or two. You never know—that something might become your next passion.
A bientot,
Claudsy
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Claudette J. Young
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Claudsy's Blog 
I’m not sure how my blog got to be included in your “related articles”. Thank you. 🙂
You got to be a reference that worked beautifully. Thank you for writing as you do so that others can reflect a few of your words.
And you’re welcome.
Congratulations, and I really dig the little gypsy wagon icon !!
Thanks so much, Randy. And I love that wagon, too. I’ve been planning one for years now. One of these days, I’ll have another small backyard where magic will happen with hammer, nails and recycled materials.
On the side of people who don’t try, I must remind you – overachievers ;-), that we don’t try because thus we may imagine our work is good, and when we get rejections, we KNOW our work sucks. Most of us just prefer not to accept the truth that we are not good. So, we don’t take non-submission as a failure, but just as an elegant lack of news 🙂
I don’t mean it so serious, of course 😀
Ah, Mariya. I used to be right there in that belief zone. Then one day I said to myself, “Can I really know the value or acceptance of my own work, if no one else ever sees it?”
I told myself that I couldn’t know. With each rejection, I tell myself that the opinion furnished by that editor was just that, an opinion of one person. I required more opinions.
I don’t believe I’ve written the great American novel or poetry to rival the greats. But, I do believe that I have something to say that others might want to hear. That’s why I submit, and since I began believing that others out there would like my work, my acceptance ratio has increased.
Personally, I don’t think your poetry sucks. I’ve read it and you have some lovely pieces in your repertoire. Please don’t sell yourself short because of one person’s opinion, even when that opinion is your own. Like all of us, you could be a bit biased in that regard.
Please come out to play more often, and ask yourself if what you’re really afraid of is not that you’re not good enough, but that you’re better than you want to believe.
yeah, could be. for some authors, that’s the truth – one editor’s opinion and it’s all a matter of roll of the dice, indeed. For others, however, rejections come for a good reason. No good deluding oneself 🙂
Of course, I don’t mean myself 😉
You make a good point, Mariya. Some pieces require a rejection, if for no other reason than to get the writer to review what was rejected and do a rewrite.
And no, I agree. The work that I’ve seen of yours is lovely and well worth the read and publication.
Thanks for the pingback. I liked your site. BTW. Lots of good info there.