...to turn

One adventure has come to an end. I entered 10 writing contests or tests of some kind. Here's a link to my kick off post from more than a year ago. I know I took my time, but I wanted to find a variety of interesting contests. (Honestly, I was also lazy at times and busy at other times, but that's life.)

I got a little ego boost because I won one of the contests I entered. Of course that means I didn't win nine of them, but I didn't expect to win any!

I entered essay contests, poetry contests, some with different kinds of judging, some contests were goals I set with myself to beat, I submitted to a variety of literary magazines. There is a summary of contests 1 through 7 here. Number 8 was a 50 word essay contest - and the only one I won! Numbers 9 and 10 were poetry submissions to good literary magazines, and none were accepted for publication.

I did this to learn: I wanted to learn about what sort of online writing opportunities are out there and I wanted to see if I could win anything. I am really happy with what I accomplished. I had a lot of fun looking for different contests and things online, there are a ton of fun things out there.

What I learned about myself and my own writing is that I need to  make it a habit. Those pieces that were recognized as "good" by outside sources were those I had worked on for a while.  Feedback I got often was some version of "Nice imagery, but needs to be worked more."

So what's the conclusion? It is that I need to make it a habit. Let's see if I can do that:
A blog post a week for the month of January... This one counts for week 1, but I'll do another in a few days (it's been brewing already).