Hello, everyone! Whether you’re reading this the day this is posted (probably not, but here’s hoping) or some other day, I hope everyone had a good day!
I’m going to talk about why, after some thinking and refocusing, that I decided not to enter anything or post any new stories into the Wattpad Shortys2024 Contest.
“What is the Wattpad Shortys2024 Contest?” you may be asking. Well, to answer your question, the contest is designed for poets and short story writers. Here are the rules and limitations:
- Poets are limited to 10 to 20 lines or under 1000 words of Prose Poetry,
- Flash fiction must be between 500 and 2,000 words
- Short stories must be between 2,000 and 5,000 words
- Entries must be published no earlier than September 1, but no later than September 30
If you want more information on the contest, click on this link below:
https://www.wattpad.com/story/375120712-the-shortys
Anyway, as a lover and writer of short stories and poems, this initially appealed to me. So much so that I was inspired by the StoryADay challenge and Batman: The Long Halloween comic to create this self-imposed challenge where I was going to post 30 stories in 30 days about 30 years of sleuths in a city called Mayville, Florida, while still following the Shortys2024 challenge (albeit much more extremely.)
And to my credit, I did plan out 30 stories Labor Day Weekend, so this was going to work, right?
Wrong.
When I got to write the first story, I only wrote the first scene, and even that took me a week to finally do. And the scene is just too clobbin’ short to justify that amount of time.
After reevaluating my goals, I realized that I don’t have the time, patience, or passion for my Shortys2024 goal, or for the contest in general. I just didn’t think it would be worth it.
This is where I offer my first-ever writing tip of this blog:
If you’re going to do a writing project and want it to be successful, you need to have patience, discipline, and passion.
Patience
Patience means giving yourself enough time to do something right. In my case, I realized I wasn’t going to allow myself the time I needed.
As a new freshman at SMU, I already have five major goals:
1. Have a stronger relationship with God,
2. Get all As in my classes
3. Create and maintain stronger friendships than the ones in high school
4. Increase my good cholesterol by exercising more
And last and most relevant to this website:
5. Plan, draft, self edit and get feedback from beta readers on the second draft/version of the novel that I wrote in July and OUTLINE a sequel by the end of the semester.
So, yeah, just the fact that this website wasn’t part of even the 5th goal that I had was me already stretching the boundaries of what I could feasibly accomplish.
Discipline
Discipline is crucial for setting realistic goals and sticking to them. Recently, I created SMART goals, which helped me realize that the 30-day challenge was, in hindsight, a “batcrap crazy” idea. Without discipline, I wouldn’t have realized how unrealistic my original plan was.
PASSION
But most importantly, even if I did have the time and the discipline (or just plain luck) to try to accomplish all 5 goals plus manage the website plus do the 30-day challenge, I wouldn’t have the passion for it, and that is so important when you’re doing any writing project. Whether it’d be for the writing itself, if you’re doing it for yourself, or for the grade or degree or money you’re going to get. And it can be both!
But passion is an essential part of the writing process.
Now, if you’re doing the Shortys2024 contest or any other challenge or contest, more power to you! But as for me, I think I’m going to focus on what I can currently manage. I encourage you to do the same, and do so with patience, discipline, and most of all, passion!
Thank you so much for reading! Stay tuned for more!
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