Imposter Status?

I'm not doing well in the writing competition scene. I don't mean to be dramatic but how many failures is a judgement?

I don't mean to be dramatic but, let's be honest, how many times do you do the same thing and get the same result before you accept that you're not very goo...

Or maybe not.

I enter writing competitions that provide feedback (even if it costs a little extra).  The reasoning being, that I would like to get something back even if it is just some feedback. Generally, I find I don't disagree with any feedback I get. Most competitions use professional or semi-professional writers to assess and analyze the work and decide, not only who wins, but what is right/wrong with the stories.

One competition host, NYC Midnight, provides a huge amount of feedback, with small breakdowns of each story (normally only a few sentences) by putting the positive before the negative. Strangely, I find that when I'm writing very specific genres (sci-fi, horror) I pretty much get the same/similar feedback from everyone, whereas when I'm writing romance or drama, I get varied feedback on individual components of each story than I would when I'm writing genre fiction.

Not to say that the feedback from my genre fiction is wrong, I just find it hard to believe that everyone is on exactly the same page.

Or do I?

Horror in particular is a highly explored genre, with its emperor at the top. Not to judge Steven King! I love his fiction. I love the way he can build characters and tie them together into believable communities and then throw them into the most destructive turmoil and it all feels so incredibly plausible.

So, what did I expect?

Nothing?

Fine! Not nothing but I'm worried about what it says about horror fiction that the judges for this are all focussing on the same positives and negatives. Has one voice twisted the meaning of horror and defined its absolute boundaries into a carefully manicured nightmare, dark, cold and predictable? I would certainly hope not, as that would confine horror to something predictable, thus removing what makes it horrific.

Based on the feedback, there is room for this story to grow into something "more", and I intend to build on that and, perhaps, turn it into something "appreciable" if not marketable.

On Forwardness

 So much has happened since I last posted. It has been a trip. First, I FINISHED MY DEGREE and a very short time later I got a new job. It isn't related to writing (systems engineer), but it pays the bills. Happiness is: not worrying about where the next gas top-up comes from.

Then, I started playing in a new RPG campaign. That's coming up on two years running once a week and has been fun. As a writer, I've always seen the value in being part of these shared story experiences, but I also see how difficult it can be to fit in your own character's "narrative" at all, let alone at an appropriate moment.

After that, some people in China started getting sick and the world was thrown upside down. I can't believe that's an ongoing thing, yet here we are with a year under our belts and the world is still as it was. I've been working from home since, delineating between "work" and rest under my own schedules (sort of).

Writing has been so far from my mind as I've adjusted to much of that, but I've started entering competitions to push myself a little. Some of them are on websites where other entrants can read and give feedback, which is always a good thing. It helps having people give you a touchstone as to how you're doing.

My most ambitious project was entering a competition for a substantial prize. I didn't expect to win, but I'd hoped to get some really strong feedback from others: Not a peep. I always panic when that happens.

In relation to my RPG stuff, I do create little rules supplements for my favourite games and share them online. I don't expect people to pay (although that option is there), but it's nice when someone does. Sadly, that is a rare treat, but even more rare is for people to leave reviews. I know there's the old addage, "if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all," but that isn't useful for helping others build on their craft. 

So, where possible, I will leave constructive criticism. Mostly, I try to point out places where a story can get confusing. Not every reader is going to be a sophisticated reader, and you have to write for that. I'm just as guilty of this as others.

And that's where I am. I'm coming back to writing, slowly but surely, and I'll be pen wrangling a lot more as I do.

An Incredibly Short Story

A long, long time ago, I posted about incredibly short stories. I was about to enter a competition that required a 10 word story in the vein of Hemingway's "Baby Shoes" story. I tried, and I didn't win. This is my story. Please comment below. Let me know what you think.

I love that you're into me, but I'm a bot.

In Praise of Katniss Everdeen

It was without doubt that The Hunger Games trilogy is full of many of the tropes that pervade YA fiction. Present and correct is the tyrany of the elders. Those in power have redesigned society for their own protection. Having been subject to a revolution, which they resisted at great cost (District 13). Once the revolution was suppressed, the ruling classes put in place a punishment to remind the Districts who was in charge, taking two children from each of 12 Districts, one male, one female, and putting them in an arena in a fight to the death.
President Snow is an unforgiving, totemic villain. He was, presumably, a child when the revolution happened, if he was even alive when it happened. Although his title is President, was he elected? He certainly seems to behave like a dictator.

Brevity is the soul of Wit

I'm trying to enter competitions. It is a challenge I'm setting myself that if I want to be successful as a writer I need to write. Many competitions out there aren't really competitions, but serve other useful purposes.
For example, competitions that offer a critique of your work if you pay a larger entrance fee are not really competitions. Although there is a prize, and at least having a chance to recoup the loss is probably worth the risk, these competitions are almost certainly a way for writing consultants and agents to drum up business.
So, what do I do instead?

Ursula K. Le Guin Is Dead

It was inevitable, I know. She was old and had been ill, but it was now, and that was unexpected. I suppose it normally is.

Ursula Le Guin died last evening, or afternoon, or morning, depending on where you are in the world, and for the first time in a long time I’m crying for a stranger.

The Cat of St. Ives (Part IV)

Our growing moan a lofty growl,
that would become a clashing howl
enforcing them to soon renounce,
as they came forth and we did pounce,
their hold on Truro ere the end
of night when we their flesh did rend
with fang and claw and shaken head
and many bodies fell down dead,
of ours and theirs, but we were true
and in the scores the rats we slew
until the dawn above the sea
showed to us the rats aflee.
But as we sat to count the cost
we realised the town was lost.
I tried to tend my sund'red flanks
and too extend the many thanks
obliged onto the feline hoard
who stood beside me on the board
of Truro's dock throughout the night
when finally we'd brought the fight.
Too late the rat was put to flight.
Despite my effort all the blood
still left me just like murine flood
without the bounds of Truro's lanes.
I felt the growing battle pains
and settled down to rest a mite,
then realised the fading light
as all my strength it passed away
as fateful night turned fatal day.

The Cat of St. Ives (Part III)

The Cat of St. Ives (Part III)

Goodly men laid in the ground

in numbers that would all astound.

Others fled, to better fare

away from Truro's streets now where

the cursed French their chance did take,

to raid in Kernow in the wake

of death, they came for all to take

using then the total break.

We, the toast of land a time,

were hated now, for no more crime

than being not so numerous

as to put down the murine curse.

Most the feline hoard had fled,

in face of that unwholesome dread,

but I could not give up so well

and, though it may be me in hell

I sought the docks one final time,

to see what conquest could be mine

before the noxious, blackened beast

could curse the world, cause all to cease.

My heart it battled in my chest,

my feet rebelling my behest,

and every creak and scrap and din,

caused my valour to within

me wither like a child of fear

aquailing at the coming near

of all the visitations dark

that fill our nightmares to the mark.

And all around me then there stirred

a gentle patter barely heard,

of softened feet alighting down

from lofty heights and through the town

my brethren, sistren came along

and putting up one valiant song

defiant in the face of fright

and on into the dark'ning night

determined to put all to flight

who dared demean our feline might.

The Cat of St. Ives (Part II)

The Cat of St. Ives (Part II)

I never was a cat of home,

and born the streets I was to roam

from Tom unknown, and mother cold

I learned from young my course to hold.

It wasn't always pain and pine,

though verily in winter time,

and oft I would a sated sleep

take neath the night and dream to keep

of when my life would always be

of comfort, warmth and joyous glee.

But moon on moon the hardships came,

and when the rats from sunny Spain

the black death carried we became

the heroes of the town again.

Dark of coat and black of eye,

quick of mind a lythely by

the guard and dockhand they would slip

on into town to nibble, nip,

and chew through cast off food and grime;

the humans' waste their baleful crime,

attracting such a numerous crowd

who carried with them darkened clowd.

The simple flea, a stowaway

that lived among us every day,

hosted by the humble rat,

the loyal dog, and sovreign cat,

brought to the land a baleful gloom,

a loathsome curse, a ghastly doom.

And as the first afflicted foundered

blame was cast and fear resounded.

I myself to Truro bounded.

The Cat of St. Ives (Part 1)

I'm publishing the beginning extract of a poem I started a long time ago, while I was living in Luton. The first line came to me while I was half-listening to the radio. They were talking about "puzzles" that a really only tricks, and the famous "As I was going to St. Ives..." problem came up.

Suddenly, the first line of my poem popped into my head, and I had to write it. Here it is, presented unedited. Maybe this will be my encouragement to finally finish it.

The Cat of St. Ives (Part I)

As I was running from to St. Ives,
I met a cat with seven lives 
Who bid of me the time of day 
and offered company a way. 
I thought it kind and did agree 
For her to walk a while with me 
And as we passed the time away 
She told me of her life's affray 
In dark of night and silent day 
From mankind's trials to cast away. 
We made our way past Hellesveor 
and on the day toward Zennor 
where, in The Tinners, toward the eve 
I called my friend for a reprieve 
and though the landlord doubted me 
my coin was good enough for he 
to let my familiar and I
to spend the night the fire by.
Twas then I saw the furred mark
more visible in gloom and dark
that told me my companion
had lost a life, if only one,
and thrust I to request the lay 
if not too much, of fateful day.

Please, enjoy. I welcome criticism, but I mean criticism. If you don't have anything to say that would help make this better, probably best not to say anything.