Astute blog
visitors will no doubt have noticed that my competitions listing page is no
longer accessible. I’m assuming there are echoes of it drifting about in Google
caches and the like, but in terms of an active page of contest details, it is
no more. It has ceased to be, etc, etc. (I shall spare you the full Monty
Python “Parrot Sketch” pastiche I could happily launch into at this point).
This is, I’m
hoping, just a temporary situation. I am a fan of writing competitions and like
to support smaller ones as much as I enjoy daydreaming about the boundless
wealth that hitting a winning streak with some of the bigger contests would
surely bring me. And I like to share this enthusiasm.
But it all
takes time, and due to a number of other commitments I have at the moment I can’t
really spare enough time to do the research, data gathering, and maintenance that
a listings page requires. I know there’s nothing more frustrating than finding
a webpage that would be useful except that it is four months out-of-date, so
until I have enough time to do it properly, I won’t be running the page at all.
In the
meantime, I will aim to flag up any interesting competitions I come across, and
will keep you posted on any successes I have in them, or any hot tips for
success that I pick up along the way.
4 comments:
I can understand that maintaining such a page would be very time consuming - hope you'll use the saving for more writing?
I did notice its absence. But it is time-consuming, even just the odd time I put up details of a few 'closing soon' prizes on my page it takes longer than I think it will to make sure I get the details of deadline, prizes, entry fees etc all correct. Then there's the maintenance that an actual page must take.
I do wonder with people like Sally Quilford how they have the patience. A little flag up here and there, and any of those 'hot tips' you mention will do the trick. And yeah, more time for you(r writing)!
Sadly at the moment I'm not really saving any time, just trying to cut down on what I'm trying to squeeze into the limited hours I have available. But, yes, it helps that I can write stuff when I get the chance without thinking I should be updating my comps page.
Competition organisers often don't make things easy, either, with details spread across several pages and weird rules that you wonder whether you should draw people's attention to or not.
I recently discovered the Winning Words blog, which has a good set of links to competitions. You'll find it here: http://winningwords.org.uk/deadlines/
I've never entered a writing competition nor will I ever in the futire but I liked reading your competitions page. Sad to see it go!
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