How do I take that final step?

[funtimewincies]

It should be so simple. I've got a short story and a poem that I'm fairly happy with and am thinking about entering them into a competition. I've also just started a longer story which I'm quite excited about.

I nearly did it today, but at the last moment I just couldn't quite bring myself to enter. Instead I read them again, changed some more things, then back again, closed the documents, opened them and then sat on my hands before I could do any more damage !

How do I know when they're as good as I can make them and how do I get over the self doubt enough to take the plunge?

Self-doubt is normal. Some of the worst writers I have known are ridiculously self-confident. You have to want to improve all the time.

You could stop tweaking and send it. What's the worst that can happen? Have you submitted before? It's great fun. You send it off and then you daydream of winning. Then you keep sending out things until one day, someone picks it up and rewards it.

Also check out prizemagic and Sally Quilford's Competition calendar. You will really get the bug!

Come on. Be brave. Life is short and other cliches!

I've never submitted anything before! I remember this feeling when handing in anything at university, it was painful . Dh threatened to kidnap my dissertation and take it to the office for me to make sure that I didn't change anything else .

What is the form with entering?

1. If I enter a story and nothing happens, can I enter the story elsewhere or would that break the 'unpublished' rule?
2. Is there a way to decide which competitions to enter. My writing doesn't naturally fit a specific genre?
3. Does my story need to be set out in a certain way (font, etc.)?

Thanks for the help so far .

1. There is a thing that some writers do called similtaneous submission - essentially they send it out to lots of places and think they will deal with any problems (like winning more than one competition with the same story). I had never done it until recently - but I still feel guilty. So chose your competition carefully - try and avoid the ones that say they chose the winner in 2012 or something ridiculous. If they say for example that they inform the winners in mid April and you hear nothing by then, you should be fine to send out again. So you decide but ALWAYS read the rules. But no, if you have not had it already unpublished it goes out as a virgin story...

2. Again read the rules. There are specialised competitions for children's stories - so don't send one of those to an adult competition. You have to use your judgement but if you can, read the type of stories that won last year - get a feel for them.

3. Rules usually specify layout but generally, you should submit in 12 pt - sometimes plain like Times New Roman and preferably doublespaced. Number your pages and put in a footer with the title. Be careful not to put your name on the manuscript if it says not to - that will probably go on a separate sheet.

Do you want to say the competition and I can try and see if I know it, know the type of stuff they take?

Oh and read read read - it will really help....

Thanks, all really helpful stuff! Do you submit yours online at all?

Oh and a lot of the winners stuff is much more flowery in style than mine, which is another reason why I'm feeling a bit wibbly. I use my words sparingly, it seems, and it looks really out of fashion .

I do sometimes submit online - usually because I have left mine to the last minute.

When you say flowery - you mean lots of description? Funnily enough, there appears to be something of a kickback towards that, at least in competitions. So lean spare powerful prose, with no unnecessary adjectives, should really hit the spot.

So go for it - but if you continue to wobble a writer's site might be a really good step for you. Avoid ones you pay for - Alex Keegan's Boot Camp is an exception but it is not for the faint-hearted, as the name suggests.

Go for it!

Thanks !

I will check!

Good luck - it is an up and down life being a writer but dammit, I can't do anything else!

Hope you entered?

(Told you I would check!)

But I did start the 'big book', albeit by writing the last chapter, which is a memory. I then had a go at paring it right down to a piece of flash fiction, just to see if I could .

No - not good enough. You have to be brave. If you like, you could send it to me and I could offer an opinion? Otherwise it may have to be detention....

I will be kind, I promise! It's something I do a lot for writer friends.

Lots of competitions around at the moment.

Writing the end of a novel is great but you are putting off actually sending stuff into the world.

(Nagging over!)

...of course you don't have to!

I just get excited with anyone who wants to write - it's such a fascinating job....

I've done it! You're right, I'm being such a coward . What's the worst that can happen, people don't like it? I'm a big girl, I can take it.

I chose this one in the end. Monthly comptetition, short time-scale and was pretty user-friendly.

I might have to find one for some poems I've got hidden away too .

Thanks for the offer, by the way. I may well take you up on it in the weeks to come!

I have just had a Facebook status update from a writer friend:

'Apparently Global Short stories are low on entries this month.'

Just thought I would let you know!

Thanks, that's cheered me up !

Hi everyone, i'm new in this area so I dont know if this thread is a one off or part of a bigger topic. Has anyone read julia Camerons The Right to Write? There's loads of stuff in it about how hard we are on ourselves as writers and how really what we need to do is talk and think less about writing and actually do it! Funtimewincies, so glad you took the leap and submitted, that's an example to us all.As my daughter said "if you submit it, it might not get chosen, but if you don't it definitely wont".

It's having punkatheart for a writing guru wots dun it !

I've not read that, might be one to look out for.

A friend of mine I assisted with her book has just sold it to a publisher - it's non-fiction but it feels great to have helped.

Guru indeed!!

Sally's calendar is brilliant, isn't it? I don't know much about the Global Comp but I know that there was a lot of negative talk about the Brit Unpublished Writers last year. However, some friends were judges and another friend came runner-up. She said that it was very disorganised but my instincts are that there are intending something big - but they stumbled with the first one.

I find that competitions are getting more and more expensive - so yes, I would be wary of any that are not known or talked well about by other writers. But there are often ones that are free - including ones run by women's magazines.

Networking with other writers is useful.

Thanks for that link Rumpel, one of the reasons that I've dithered is not being able to distinguish between genuine and less genuine competitions at this stage in my writing.

I'm thinking that my writing isn't the sort to be used by women's magazines (usually crime links but not crime writing as such) but it might be worth a punt.