Quote: "As it stands, the Perrier Award is a divisive and damaging exercise. It
sets one performer against another and creates thousands of losers for every
winner. It sours the comedy programme of the festival and stifles innovation and originality as performers search for lowest common denominators to appease competition judges." - Tommy Sheppard, Leading Comedy Promoter at Edinburgh Festival.
So there you have it from someone 'up there' that competition creates losers.
The analogy of treating your writing life as gently as a flower still in bud, used in Creative Writing the Organic Way, is a serious piece of advice. Rejection is hard to bear and you have to be ready for it but never expecting it. The only way to become immune and therefore learn from it is to experience it: been there, done that, got the tee-shirt. The first step is the hardest. If you're not prepared for rejection then it can demolish your reason for living but if you expect rejection then it's probably what you'll get. So learn to cope with your own creative emotions, nurturing the positive and avoiding the downers.
Although magazine editors and competition judges will tell you to send your best work, don't. Send your most appropriate work for their market or the competition specifications.
Your best work is nearly always your very latest work. If you're onto a particular style and smooth run of experimental, exploratory stories, preserve them like gold dust. If any of them gets rejected at this stage in your tentative development then you'll want to abandon the project and will probably find yourself writing stuff that you hate. Then you might feel torn between writing for money versus for love and it stops you in full flow of a brilliant idea that never again sees the light of day.
It's useful to listen to visual artists' experiences for equivalent advice on fostering confidence as a writer. At a local exhibition of work I was talking with a well-seasoned artist on the subject of whose work had been rejected. He was fairly deprecating about one painting of his, which was accepted. He said, "I always say to people, don't put your best work in for something like this." Clearly he was 'into' another series of works that excited him greatly. "You see," he went on, "this selection panel simply grab what they think looks good. It has nothing to do with artistic vigour or even favouritism for that matter. It's all done on a whim and what fits on that wall next to this or that. If you put in your most precious, passionate work, the project you're working on, and it's rejected - it could destroy you."
The same applies to magazines and competitions. I'm not referring to Writing Life competitions because where I'm the judge I'm seeking the same qualities that I try to teach. (But remember how losing can make you feel like you're a loser.) Every competition or application for a grant requires a submission and every submission is at risk of being rejected.
Competition is diametrically opposite to the nature of the artist. As Writing Life students you're artists in the making, not journalists. This is not to say that competitions are bad for you or that you shouldn't go in for them, but do handle with care. The good thing about them is that they make you give a final polish to a story for a deadline. They provide a destination where once there was a black hole or brick wall. If they provide critiques or scores then they give you an indication of where you might be doing something wrong and doing something right.
At the end of the day every masterpiece is in the eye of the beholder and as such your baby is in the lap of the gods. It's okay to ignore rejection in all its guises, to continue with your art in the way you know you must express yourself. Send the lesser pieces to be mauled by competition judges and critics but keep what's precious under your hat until you're confident and ready to present it to the world, so very resolutely that if it’s demolished it won’t be at your emotional expense.
© Bernie Ross 2005
Bernie has been writing since she was eight years old and though life has taken many twists and turns', writing has remained her fortress, her sanctuary and her life-support. She's been published widely, anywhere she was able to get a foot in the door and now publishes herself and others, all within the philosophy of Writing Life.
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