*cringe* Submitted shoddy, unfinished story into competition *cringe*

[ohhsuchanamateur]

I'm full-body cringing like a mo-fo. I have just submitted a short story to a rather prestigious competition. I'm not naive enough to believe I could be shortlisted in this thing but it was important to me nonetheless and I am about to smack myself out with all the face palming I'm doing given the mess I've made of it all.

I ummed and ahhed about entering at all given a set of health and child-related circumstances conspiring against me to get the story finished made more difficult by crippling self-doubt. But I made the final dash to the finish line thinking "Meh. What's the worst that could happen."

I stupidly read the "final" draft submitted at the 11th hour after a rushed sprint to the end, despite knowing I would be unhappy with it. It's riddled with errors - punctuation, missing words, asterisks in places I meant to revisit and rewrite but ran out of time to. AARRRGGGHHH.

Somebody help. In the scheme of things it means nowt, I know. But this was pretty important to me and now I've effed it up royally.

Let it go, OP. You wrote the thing and you took a bold step in submitting it - putting yourself out there is brave, and this wasn’t a bad first step! See it as a starting stone for your next endeavour.

Well in the nicest possible way it couldn’t have been that important to you if you submitted it in that form. Either that or you set yourself up to fail with the format so you could convince yourself the content was worthy but it will be dismissed because of the poor presentation.

Also, you’re the only person in the world who knows or cares and there will be plenty more opportunities to write and submit in the future.

OP, it’s okay to fuck up. We need to get comfortable with that. It’s better that you submitted than not at all.

However I do agree with a PP that you may have sabotaged yourself unconsciously. It’s tough with writing, because you’re putting yourself out there. Are you trying to give yourself a ‘get out’ clause? Might be worth thinking about that.

I’ve just done something similar for a piece of work for my MSc. Nobody died and at least you submitted it! Well done! Much better than sitting around, wishing you had but it wasn’t perfect. It will never be perfect.

Much better than sitting around, wishing you had but it wasn’t perfect. It will never be perfect.

I think this is important.

The quest for perfection is paralysing and inhibits many from achieving their full potential.

They will likely think you submitted the wrong version - a prior draft -which is easily done and they'll have seen it lots of times before, so don't worry about what 'they' think and just get straight back to making that draft the best it can possibly be in readiness for the next competition.

Well done for submitting. Also start working on your next story now. Keep the ball rolling.

Can you not send the last page rewritten as an addendum, apologising for accidentally sending the wrong page?

You submitted it! That's a step - they also have editors, so if they like the content and tone, they may well be willing to overlook any errors as it's be edited before publication anyway :)

I would be cringing too but there is literally nothing you can do about it, so you need to let it go and move on. Think of it as practice for meeting a deadline -- you did well to submit at all, and next time you will do better.

Keep polishing the draft and look for another competition! Writing is a marathon, not a sprint.

See that as a practice shot and start the next one.

Thanks, all. I really appreciate the positive replies!

I'm actually very good at meeting deadlines and have never missed one as it's part of my job, but I'm so off kilter at the moment. And work deadlines are fine because it's not personal.

I did question self-sabotage because I do struggle with feeling confident about my work. But I don't think that was it. It never would have felt finished even with all the time in the world, but I've never made so many mistakes before. I'm really anal about that in particular and it really was just a case of too many conflicting priorities. I have only recently pushed myself to start submitting short stories to competitions (this was the third) as I've written my entire life but never felt ready or "good enough" to send them in.

@LaurieMarlow The quest for perfection is paralysing and inhibits many from achieving their full potential.

I keep this ^ in mind as much as possible because it's the biggest obstacle to actually submitting work for me and I imagine for others too. So writing for competitions is testing my inability to let it go.

Anyway, done now and I will heed advice to press on. Thanks, MNers!

Realistically, if it has grammatical errors etc the judges won't read beyond the first few paras and certainly won't remember your name. It's not the same, but I have done the job of reviewing c. 200 graduate applications on a number of occasions; you can tell very quickly which ones are plainly unsuitable and don't waste any time on them. It's the better ones which you actually scrutinise closely.

On a more practical note, you can always go back to it and submit it to another competition. Good luck.

Writing competitions (especially prestigious ones) are usually judged anonymously so don't worry your name won't be forever tarnished as a poor writer.

As a pp has said, if it's as riddled with errors as you say the judges will likely only read the beginning then quickly move on to the next one and forget about yours. And I doubt yours will be the only entry that's considerably less than perfect.

Well done for having the courage to put your writing out there to be judged by strangers. A lot of people are too fearful to ever submit anything.

Put this behind you for now and concentrate on your next story.

Good luck with all your future submissions!

Honestly, don't worry about it. They're not going to turn up on your doorstep and point and jeer. If your story has errors in it the most likely outcome is that it won't be read, but that's not the end of the world.

You now have 100% more experience with submitting your work than you had before, and you know what to (double) check for next time. And that's good. It's a good thing! You'll be surprised how much more confident you feel next time out.

This is one opportunity out of thousands. If publication is important to you, keep going. The more submissions you make, the greater your chance of success. Best of luck!

Oh God, I once did this with a job application for a role I was genuinely interested in. I think it was my third application of the day and 20th of the week. I filled it all out - it was huge. Sumbitted it. The next day I reread it and it was awful! Full of errors I hadn't registered the day before.

This is what happens to tired minds.

I didn't get the job. Obviously. But I did learn from it. I now read things 100 times before releasing them into the wild.

Next time, sleep on it or have someone else reliable proof read it first. If you stare at the same thing for too long, you start to see what you think it says.

* But this was pretty important to me and now I've effed it up royally.*

Sorry OP but doesn’t seem to have been particularly important to you.
Yes - you messed up, but if you didn’t stand a chance of winning anyway, shrug it off.

I very very much doubt they will accept a second entry.

Otherwise it would set a precedent.

I only say you didn’t stand a chance because you say you doubted you’d be shortlisted. Obviously I don’t know either way!