The writing world is rife with competition – the prizes, the race for an agent, a publisher, the need to push your books into the hands of the readers over all of the others grappling for their attention – there’s no avoiding it. The second you start sending your work out, you’re pitting yourself against all other writing out there, simply by saying it’s worth someone time to read yours and not someone else’s.
That’s a big enough ask, but these days I’m finding myself getting caught up in trying to ‘win’, whether that means placing in a competition or having a story accepted. No big deal, maybe. Isn’t that the whole point? A shiny wee medal of encouragement and a pat on the back, who wouldn’t want that? But the more I find myself thinking about writing as something you can win or lose, the harder I find it to actually concentrate on what I’m writing.
With talk of branding, book as products, authors as equity, it’s easy to start to think about this business as a game, as something you can squeak past the finish line of. We’re in it to win it, but should we be?
Winning street sign
A few recent near misses of one kind of another almost knocked me off course recently, until I remembered that I’m not writing for a gold cup or a badge, I’m doing it because I want to – just for me. And if you take part, it doesn’t really matter whether you win or not, because if someone else reads one of your stories, that’s a pretty awesome prize.
Lynsey May 
I so agree. When competition is the game, it is tempting to avoid being “wrong” and unless a writer risks being “wrong” they cannot get close to the truth. Ken Robinson’s Ted Talk on creativity expresses this well.
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Oh, I haven’t watched that one – thanks Alison, I will check it out!
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Ugh. So true. I actually hate the idea of having to compete for anything… I always think about Rilke in that regard. To compete, you have to compare. But Rilke says stop comparing and simply turn inward when writing.
Anyway, great post. 🙂
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Thanks! Me too, I hated PE at school for that reason and I still have an aversion to board and card games. Maybe because I suspect that somewhere deep inside, there is a part of me that wants to win very much indeed.
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I know what you mean.
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Yup, know what you mean. It’s a competition between all these other writers – and then it becomes yourself v yourself – and then the stories suck – and then you try to forget the ‘market’ and focus – and then the stories no longer suck…
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Exactly. I definitely need some better self discipline in forgetting everyone/thing else for a while.
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Definitely agree. Competition takes many forms: the entry competition, where there is only one winner (maybe second place or even a prestigious shortlist etc.) and also wider market competition. Entry competitions are fun and a bit of a lottery… I’ve won a few prizes but lost far many more. The wider market takes longer to figure out… I’m actually inspired by the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon. It shows that publishing is like the Wizard of Oz, a man behind a curtain and lots of smoke, not quite the gatekeeper of quality…far from it, in the case of 50 Shades of Grey. This also illustrates the need to connect with core readers, even in terms of fan-fiction, which is the kernel of success in this case. There’s also the intermediate market of events, awards, bursaries and opportunities, which is itself somewhat modish and agenda-orientated. From my point of view, I’m trying to forget all of that and reconnect with a core readership, which in my case is horror. This involves making connections through reading and writing in an area of shared interest.
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That sounds like a great way to go, Iain! I will be very interested to read how you get on connected directly to readers – brilliantly, I’m sure.
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Ha ha! I hope so! It’s a kick up the bum anyway. Horror and dark fiction is my main interest although it is good to see all the other stuff going on.
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Well said, Lynsey May. Couldn’t agree more. The writing itself is what counts.
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Hear, hear! Cheers Fiona.
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Ah, yes … I’ve definitely lingered on the page you write of. It’s so hard to not get caught up in all the hoopla about writing that _is not_ actual writing. Thankfully, all that noise quiets when I lose myself in a story … Thanks for the thoughtful post. 🙂
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Very glad you can put it all aside when the story magic is happening, Ev! Will do my best to do the same, thanks. 🙂
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