Having done very little with my writing for a number of years, in 2024 I decided to make more of an effort to submit my work to competitions. Fortunately, pretty much everyone now accepts online submissions, so there was no postage to pay, but looking back over my records for the year, I find that I spent £204 on competition entry fees.
One poem was commended; one was longlisted and supposedly included in an anthology that I then heard no more about; one piece (which had been previously published) got an honourable mention and web publication; and one was placed first in a competition, for which I received £200. I suppose that means I just about broke even.
I’m pretty sure that I am not alone, but how do we non-professional part-time writers manage? Or perhaps a better question would be: Why do we continue?
Why do we go on writing when we know that there is only a one in a million chance of finding success? Or, given that all too often we tell ourselves that we write to fulfil an inner need, why don’t we consider the writing itself a sufficient reward?
If it were money we wanted, would we be writing poetry and short stories? Surely we would focus our efforts on commercial articles instead. We would concentrate on becoming experts in one or two specialist topics and spend our time on research which could be turned into articles and sold over and over to different magazines in different countries.
But no, we write ‘creatively’ to satisfy an inner compulsion.
Yet even so, we are not satisfied until we think that other people have recognised us as writers. We are so determined to see our names in print that we are willing to pay to participate in competitions and then, far too often, to pay again to buy the anthology when our work is selected for publication.
Is it a question of insecurity that makes us need to reinforce our self-image by pursuing the appearance of fame, even if we have to finance it ourselves? Or is it the gambler’s mentality that drives us? Having started out entering occasional competitions and perhaps winning commendations or minor prizes, do we keep on, convinced that the next one will be the big break?
And if we scooped a major prize, what would we do? Rest on our laurels? Retire honourably? Quit while we were ahead? I doubt it. I suspect any winnings would be reinvested in further competition entries, further copies of anthologies which are only sold to other contributors. Maybe, if we won enough money, we’d go so far as to self publish a selection of our work though, ignorant of marketing, we may not sell more than a handful of copies.
Of course there’s no harm in it if we keep our expenditure in line with the size of our pockets. Everybody is entitled to a hobby, and if I choose to spend money on poetry competitions while my husband spends his down the pub, that’s my decision.
My point, though, is that it is worth stopping every once in a while to consider just how much we are spending, and what we really hope to achieve by it all.
If you’re thinking of entering a writing competition, do check out my article "Ten Tips to Maximise Competition Success". If you prefer, you can also listen on The Patchword Podcast on Spotify, or watch the video on YouTube.
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