about how many will take part in this year's short story competition with no particular theme?
Replies
To answer the question, several. In response to the above answer, can I point out that I am a level 0 on this site although I have been a member for some years. I regularly check the questions and the shared work but as a reasonable inexperienced writer I often have nothing more constructive to contribute than the answers others have already given, and most of the time find the answers helpful to my own work. Should I write unhelpful or repetitive replies simply to look 'active?' or risk exclusion from what is, in reality, simply a helpful exercise to concentrate the mind and get something your satisfied with down on paper within a timelimit?
If the Firewords competition of late last year is anything to go by*, a slurry of people who have nothing to do with this web-site will have signed up, just to comply with the condition that participants must be registered on this site. The shortlist will be made up of people who do absolutely NOTHING to support fellow writers on this site - some of the shortlisted already professional writers with publishing contracts, who don't NEED to win yet another prize, except to add to their already-long CVs.
I repeat that in that Firewords competition, 3 writers who are actually active on https://www.writersandartists.co.uk submitted works that were, in MY opinion, superior to those of one of the tied-for-winners and the first runner-up. I have seen exactly ZERO activity on this site from any of the 10 short-listed authors: either before or after taking part in the competition. ALL were level 0 "users" of the site (except for 2 who resigned from the site less than 3 weeks after the results of the competition (meaning that there's no way of seeing whether they were level 0 or not - but if they jumped ship once the competition was over, one can only assume that they were)... one of them carrying off one of the top prizes).
This isn't a case of "sour grapes": I was too busy with other work (as well as my personal life) to entrer that competition myself.
But this time - even if I DID have more free time (and with all the editing work looming up re: http://la-granota.com/stranger.htm, frankly, I don't) - I would be very leery of taking part in a competition where the the rules seem made to be broken (sorry: not broken... but robbed of any significance).
May I be permitted to advise the W&As staff to change the conditions of future competitions? EITHER make them open to all comers, whether registered users of the site or not OR restrict participation to those who have reached at least level 1 on this site: by being of SOME use to the rest of us.
Otherwise, that condition is just ridiculous.
* For more detail on this issue, see "Just what's going on here???" https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/question/view/2762
To answer the question, several. In response to the above answer, can I point out that I am a level 0 on this site although I have been a member for some years. I regularly check the questions and the shared work but as a reasonable inexperienced writer I often have nothing more constructive to contribute than the answers others have already given, and most of the time find the answers helpful to my own work. Should I write unhelpful or repetitive replies simply to look 'active?' or risk exclusion from what is, in reality, simply a helpful exercise to concentrate the mind and get something your satisfied with down on paper within a timelimit?
I, for one, will be giving it a miss.
If the Firewords competition of late last year is anything to go by*, a slurry of people who have nothing to do with this web-site will have signed up, just to comply with the condition that participants must be registered on this site. The shortlist will be made up of people who do absolutely NOTHING to support fellow writers on this site - some of the shortlisted already professional writers with publishing contracts, who don't NEED to win yet another prize, except to add to their already-long CVs.
I repeat that in that Firewords competition, 3 writers who are actually active on https://www.writersandartists.co.uk submitted works that were, in MY opinion, superior to those of one of the tied-for-winners and the first runner-up. I have seen exactly ZERO activity on this site from any of the 10 short-listed authors: either before or after taking part in the competition. ALL were level 0 "users" of the site (except for 2 who resigned from the site less than 3 weeks after the results of the competition (meaning that there's no way of seeing whether they were level 0 or not - but if they jumped ship once the competition was over, one can only assume that they were)... one of them carrying off one of the top prizes).
This isn't a case of "sour grapes": I was too busy with other work (as well as my personal life) to entrer that competition myself.
But this time - even if I DID have more free time (and with all the editing work looming up re: http://la-granota.com/stranger.htm, frankly, I don't) - I would be very leery of taking part in a competition where the the rules seem made to be broken (sorry: not broken... but robbed of any significance).
May I be permitted to advise the W&As staff to change the conditions of future competitions? EITHER make them open to all comers, whether registered users of the site or not OR restrict participation to those who have reached at least level 1 on this site: by being of SOME use to the rest of us.
Otherwise, that condition is just ridiculous.
* For more detail on this issue, see "Just what's going on here???" https://www.writersandartists.co.uk/question/view/2762
happy valentine's day, everybody!:)