Results are Good, Whether You Like Them or Not.

 

     I entered a writing contest a little while ago. Maybe 2 months ago. I can’t really remember, I almost forgot. I thought it sounded fun. They give you a word and an action and a genre, then you have 48 hours to write a story that is only 100 words long. I had fun doing it. I knew the results should be coming out soon, but as I said, it was kind of in the back of my mind. I had been looking into other contests. You know how FB is, once you look at something, that’s all it thinks you want to see. So I’ve been inundated with suggestions of writing contests. Only a couple seemed interesting, only one I actually attempted. Well, the results came out today. I did not win. I was not in the top 15 of my “group.” My “group” was about 100 people, all writing about a Romantic Comedy involving Improvisation including the word Comfort. When I first read which group I was in, I had a good chuckle. Romantic Comedy is probably the last thing I would’ve wanted. But, oh well, that’s how the world works sometimes. That’s one of the things about trying new things, you can almost never tell how it’s going to go, or what it’s going to be like, ahead of time. Although I have found, through years of trying new things, that if you go in expecting to have fun, then you usually will. And I did. I put effort in, I enjoyed myself, and I thought I did pretty good. Narrowing down 100 words was tricky, but I thought I had a cohesive story. I’m glad I tried. I was kind of hoping I would make it to the second round, but alas that was not meant to be.

 

     I’m not too broken up about it. After all, it was my first try. And I would never in 100 years think about doing anything in the Rom-Com genre. But I did, and it was cool. The other part I thought was cool was that they provide you feedback. Some things that they liked about what you wrote, and the parts they thought could use improvement. They even provided some suggestions that may have made my story more to their liking. I appreciated that very much. It was almost like being on some kind of reality show, without the harsh criticism and fanfare.  That seemed like a nice touch. It also made me realize that I don’t want to write fiction. I don’t even like reading fiction all that much. I have enough stories going on in my head, I don’t need someone else’s imagination jumping in there. Stories. I’ve been making up stories my whole life. But I’m not really into writing fiction. Although I have no less than 5 stories that I keep in my head, just in case. I find it amusing too that I knew this ahead of time. I just wanted to try something different. And I imagine that any type of practice writing is good. Anything I can do to sit here and type, getting an idea from inside my head to the computer screen is good! That’s all I was really doing anyway. For what it counts, that’s all this is too. Practice. I do consider myself a writer. I mean, that’s what I’m doing right now, writing. Practicing for my first real effort. I do have the rough draft completed. And that’s part of being here, making sure I stay in creative mode, making writing a priority.

 

     I was getting in a real good mode at the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020. I was knocking sh*t out! Then Covid happened. And we had 2 people working from home and only 1 computer. Logically the person who gets paid to use the computer gets to use it. So I fell out of habit. Then we moved. Things got rearranged. I am just now starting to get back in the habit. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I like to start slow. Sometimes glacial. Which is an odd thing for me to deal with because I know I am a bit, some might say extremely, impatient. In general, nothing goes as fast as I think that it should. However, when it comes to my creative life, and my hopes and dreams, I’m like “Ah, there’s plenty of time.” Which I know there isn’t. I’m about to finally record some songs I wrote almost 20 years ago! Now that’s patient. I wish I could use some of that patience when I’m dealing with the f*cking idiots at the grocery store. Anyway, before I get to far off topic, that sounds like a good topic for a different day. Sometimes it’s hard to notice things unless you write them down. Something happens during the act of removing thoughts from your head and seeing them on display. And that’s kind of what happened to me today when I read their feedback. I got dinged for what I consider my style. They thought I should have used a lot more literary devices. I honestly feel that I’m trying to hone a particular way of doing this. I like what I’m working on. I don’t want to be good at writing fiction. Even if I did write fiction, I think I would still want it to sound like it was coming from me, not from someone who learned how to write a certain way. I’m sticking with it!