The Competition
A friend recently asked me, what is it with all you writers on Facebook? You are always sharing links to competitions and encouraging each other to enter, and to submit to magazines. Aren’t you spoiling your own chances of success? 
I hadn’t really thought about it like that – but on consideration it doesn’t really make any sense. In fact, often the fear we have of competition is based on a false idea that there’s only a tiny pie and we need to protect our share of it – when actually there are many arenas where by working together and supporting each other, we can make the pie – and our share of it – bigger and better.
I don’t think creative writing is competitive in that way. If all my writing friends were to write a story on one theme, each story would be uniquely their own. As to whether a particular judge would like it, or whether it would be the kind of story that would be suited to a particular competition – that’s also completely unpredictable.
I would say that the support and encouragement that I gain from having lots of writing friends – on Facebook, on Twitter, or whose blogs I read – is much more important.
Writing is hard work, and I’ve been accumulating a lot of rejections. That can be very dispiriting – and more than once I have considered giving up – only to be encouraged by writing friends who have gone through the same experiences. Sometimes I see that my friends have also been rejected – and then it can be my turn to encourage and support.
This week though, I have something to celebrate. One of my Facebook writing friends has a story longlisted for the Bristol Prize, and another has had a poem accepted by Mslexia magazine.
Now that’s the kind of news that cheers us all up, and makes it all worth while.
So many congratulations to my anonymous friends, who are welcome to unveil themselves in the comments if they wish 
And the rest of us will just keep on keeping on, and providing virtual hugs when the going gets tough.
So I’m leaving you with a question to ponder. Is there something in your life where you are clinging on to your own small pie – when you could do better by opening up and collaborating and working with others, instead of against them?
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About Ann GodridgeAnn Godridge has just completed her first crime novel, The Mermaid's Shroud, and has started work on the sequel. Her story the Tree of Knowledge was shortlisted for the Asham Award. She writes about writing and sometimes about textile arts at her blogStraw into Gold. You can find out more about her here - About Ann G.
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16 Responses to The Competition
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Interesting points you make Ann. In my line of work collaboration is the name of the game otherwise you don't get very far given the complexity of the issues everyone is trying to resolve. Being fairly new to the field I rely on others for industry knowledge etc and besides trying to bring in a project on my own would be laughable.
Working withe others in my view makes the work lighter, fun and enjoyable
Thanks Ida. I think co operation and collaboration are better strategies in a good many fields, but somehow they too often get overlooked
I think this is a slightly more complex issue than simply whether you are prepared to collaberate or not – certainly from my own experiences.
As a generalisation I think collaberation and sharing are likely to lead to a more successful conclusion for everyone, but I have entered into a number of supposed collaberations on business ideas, opportunities and proposals in the past, only to find them then being exploited by others at my expense – mainly by men I might add. So I think you have to take extreme care in deciding how and with who to collaberate – or it can be an costly risk!
I agree with you Ann, that the premise is more suited to some circumstances than others – and that when it is implemented in the right way, the rewards can be collectively greater.
Very good point, Elaine – tehre are are always those who will exploit others and especially those who are interesting in sharing and collaborating. And I too have had the experience where I've made a suggestion, and then watched someone else somehow manage to take the credit for it. Sometimes I even think they genuinely believe the ideas just popped into their head from nowehere
I was going to suggest that maybe it works better in a creative arena – then recalled a story where a creative writing tutor actually stole an idea from a student, wrote it up as her own, and then won a competition. Now I know ideas aren't copyright, but that does seem to me to be taking advantage, even if she was more capable of making a good job of the idea than the student.
Hmmm…
Have been pondering this for a while. As I understand it an idea that is out in the public domain, is a free for all, anyone can help themselves to it and that's your loss.
This blog itself was not my idea, and I acknowledge that. How it is now, is more me than the original idea along with the name. The idea has evolved from the original concept, but I am still happy to tell people, it wasn't my idea, someone shared it with me and I run with it and grew it, and now the fellow Birds grow it and shape it as they see fit, I merely correct typos
Suze has mentioned before that there are some in 'creative industries' who are very unscrupulous and stole one of her concepts.
I do think the world is changing, the greed is good mantra seems to be dying out and yes, whilst money is good, hurting people for no reason other than money is a bad thing.
I'll shut up now.
I am reminded of someone in my area of work who has made it her jobs worth to tell who ever will listen that I am trying to emulate her and that I am stealing her ideas! One person she told got so angry with her that he sent me the entire email they had exchanged and vowed to giver her a wide berth!
In most areas I think, the truth is that ideas are ten a penny. It's really the execution and all the hard work needed to make them happen that makes the difference.
The reason I have an issue with the teacher is that really she broke a kind of trust. However she wrotye it up it would be a very different story than her student would have written – that's the thing about creativity and imagination. But she could at least have asked.
On FB when I've shared various news stories, I've even been asked by some of my writing friends if I mind if they use them in their stories. Of course I don't mind – because even if I'm planning to use them myself it will all come out differently. And I think that we all enrich each other's ideas and work anyway.
I think, Sarah, that your vision and drive is what makes this blog work as well as it does. So whatever the original impetus, it's what you make of it that makes it unique.
LOL, that's the other side of the story, too Ida. I am reminded of all the would be writers who are always suing famous writers and claiming that their ideas have been stolen. The latest one who claims JK Rowling stole all the ideas for Harry Potter from his twenty page privately published pamphlet was a prime example.
On the bright side you must be doing something right to make someone so jealous
For me it's about acknowledging the source as well, I often link to things I have read or found interesting and what my own view is on it. I actually wrote a blog about it last weekend, on acknowledging inspiration.
What if we had no readers ever comment here? even though we had hundreds of views, not a peep? We'd soon give up, but if someone linked to us and said – I have been reading this… then we would carry on (most of us would carry on anyway), acknowledgment in some form or another is also encouragement. It's very lonely otherwise, as you and your writer friends would know.
Poor you Ida, she doesn't know you very well at all if she thinks she can pull this off
Exactly right. It's about communication and it's a two way thing. Someone asked me the other day, why do so many people talk to you on Facebook, and I said, it's because I talk to them. I answer if they ask me something, I comment on their links and statuses and not only on mine, and I appreciate the back and forth
I talk a lot in general but I also like to listen – I found out very early if you tell someone something about your life, they'll tell you something about theirs. And I'm nosy
In writing it's also about being part of a tradition. Poets refer to each other poems. Even on my course we were encouraged to write poems as an answer to a poem by someone else – so it becomes part of a conversation. I'm not a poet, but one of my favourite poems about my lovely dog Tasha, sadly no longer with us, was inspired by a Victorian poet who wrote about one of his dogs.
So, as part of a tradition you even get to collaborate with the great ones who have gone before
But yes, acknowledging it is important.
One of the things I have difficulty in comprehending on Facebook is the motivation of people who set up groups or fan pages whose sole purpose appears to be to collect Likes. The item in question is not used for any purpose other than as a collecting vehicle. This sort of thing is very popular with my niece, and no doubt all her generation.
I think it varies. Sometimes I think there's a simple collecting urge – a numbers game. A competition to collect the most likes.
Sometimes perhaps it's an urge to express something. I occasionally click like on something that scrolls past on the news feed, if I see a sentiment expressed that reflects how I'm feeling at the time, or just to express solidarity with a cause or whatever.
But if it then becomes intrusive and it was just a passing fancy – I go and unlike it. As you say most of them do nothing, but occasionally someone seems to have the urge to use a page as a personal soapbox. It depends entirely on how entertaining or informative I find that as to whether I stay liked or not.
Is that the sort of thing you mean?
As an example, my niece joined a group called “I tell you to suck my dick even though I don't have one”, even though that group only exists as a (fairly offensive) tagline and nothing else. I'm not talking about groups supporting or objecting to a particular cause. My niece “belongs” to over 1,200 groups, most of them with silly names like the one I've mentioned.
Probably just because her friends joined then- no different really to the daft graffiti one sees chalked along the paths on the seafront or in the places the kids hang out – just the online equivalent of graffiti. Mostly meaningless, except for a kind of loose social bond.