Hurdles and Hoops

Thursday 8th February 2024, planning notes for a new novel, 0 new rejections, 0 new submissions, 1 competition entered, still reading The Islands of Abandonment and listening to A Swim in a Pond in the Rain by George Saunders, finished reading Stoner by John Williams, The Storied life of A J Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin (loved) and Water by John Boyne, started reading Wild Houses by Colin Barrett and Love in the Fast Lane by Sophie E Mills, 8 new book purchases (the reading weekend involved a charity shop and a gorgeous bookshop in Chipping Norton – Jaffe and Neale), 2 coffees, 1 lemon and ginger tea and two bourbons

This week I wallowed in self-pity. Normally I wouldn’t allow myself to indulge in such a pointless exercise but the disappointment I faced knocked my usual resolve. As my readers, you know that I plan to enter some competitions this year. This process serves the purpose of exposing my writing to a wider audience and encourages regular writing and editing outside my works in progress. All the deadlines for the January and February competitions I am interested in are marked in my diary and as I enter each one I feel a sense of satisfaction as I meet my new year promise.

After my reading retreat last weekend, I sat down to edit the first fifty pages of With Everything I Know (my old lady novel). A prestigious competition deadline looms on the 9th February – the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize – so, with my favourite pen in hand, I edited the first chapter. This is my third round of edits and I still have a job list of ideas to incorporate into the manuscript. The thought of entering this award filled me with excitement. On Monday I investigated the T&Cs and the FAQ to make sure my entry would not be disqualified for some arcane reason (rather than the quality of my writing). They made for disappointing reading.

This competition considers sharing chapters of your writing online as ‘publication’. This does not have to be the manuscript you want to enter. This rule means once you have published a chapter online of any of your works, you are not eligible. I was disproportionately upset by this. Blogging and sharing my unpublished work online is scary. Online advice to budding writers suggests building a brand and a following (this will make you more marketable), but here a prestigious competition uses that brave and conscientious approach to being a 21st century writer, against us. I cried.

I wasn’t upset because I cannot win this award but because I can’t enter. Ever. The Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize organisers deem my online dalliance with my work ‘publication’ – I wish I did.

Competitions often have an entry fee (mostly affordable and with low income subsidies) and there are hundreds to enter (hence why I deemed my reaction disproportionate to the loss) and in the same vein as literary agents, they all want something different in their submission process. For example most synopsis requirements range from 300 words to one side of A4 (single-spaced). The Lucy Cavendish competition requires a 3-5 page synopsis. A friend at AWG has been spending her week, not fine tuning her manuscript, but trying to expand the synopsis she had edited down to the one-page standard. Writing is difficult. Completing a manuscript is a tremendous achievement, so to be faced with hurdles to leap and hoops to jump through, after you have already spent hours (sometimes years) honing your novel, can result in frustrated rants like this one. At least I don’t have to expand my one-page synopsis.

On the advice of another AWG writer who was shortlisted for the Lucy Cavendish Fiction Prize last year, I queried my interpretation of the rules with the organisers. I hadn’t misunderstood: posting chapters of my unpublished manuscript deems me ‘published’. Meeting with fellow writers at AWG last night gave me an opportunity to share my frustrations. Sophie E Mills paid me huge compliments after reading You Can See the End of the World From Here and agreed to beta-read my Tempest retelling, despite it being an early draft. The amalgamation of talent in this group is where its value lies. Every writer has faced the same hurdles and hoops as I have. The pool of advice from #booktok and self-publishing, to which editing tools and craft books to read, creates a creative space where you can explore the next steps in your writing journey.

The hurdles on my yellow brick road may have tripped me up this time, but I have patched up my scraped knees, wiped away my tears and am ready to jump through the next hoop.

Kate

P.S. For any writers that are interested, the next two competitions on my list are the Writers’ and Artists’ Short Story and the Spotlight First Novel.

P.P.S. I got very wet taking the picture of our rather tatty basketball hoop. Another hurdle jumped.