The first hard lesson learned involved Contests, Part One. (Yeah, you can expect a Part Deux next week. Maybe even a Part Three. I had a lot to learn about contest-writing.)
Way back in the early days, I found a writing contest that called for entrants to finish a story. It had to be in the style of the original writer (Simple!), continue the plot and solve the mystery (Is that all?) and mention a name-brand product in a prominent way (alright, already).
Easy-weezy, I said to myself. Except that I spent weeks working on this grand opus. Which didn't win (Some Bozo won. Seriously. It was a clown from Omaha or somewhere). Now, friends, what was I to do with this wonderfully clever, albeit narrowly-conceived story I had filling up my Documents file?
Pretty much nothing. All that work for naught. Unless, little grasshopper, you consider the lesson I learned about what not to do.
That's not to say I don't do contests. Or that I won't write a story that must stick to a theme, or complete a first line, or write in the style of another author. In fact, I placed in the Top Ten Finalists recently in the Will Rogers Writing Contest (http://www.columnists.com/).
But if I choose a contest along those lines, I won't do one that requires me to use a ton of my precious writing hours with very little chance of any payoff. And I absolutely won't write something for a contest that's good only for that specific contest.
Or maybe I just learned that I wasn't the scathingly brilliant writer I think I am?
Nahhh.
