What's your strategy?

It's that time of year when some of the biggest writing contests open for entries including, of course, the Bridport Prize (accepting flash fiction for the first time). Then there are impending deadlines for the Fish One Page Prize, the Bristol Short Story Prize, and then Exeter, Yeovil - the list goes on. All of which has me thinking: what's your strategy for deciding which contests to enter and what influences that process?

Do you, for instance, consider the odds?If you're a newish writer do you tend to enter smaller contests and build up to the bigger ones? If so, I admire your pragmatism; I could never resist jumping straight to the big fish (in this case Fish itself, where I got lucky in 2008).

Bridport is a longer shot than ever with a 40% increase in entries for 2009: 17,000 entries, including poetry! I wonder, was this the result of Ali Smith's judging role, or could it be that the exchange rate made Fish seem more expensive than ever to enter? (Terrific prize money, of course.) To what extent does the entry fee affect your decision to submit to a certain contest? At all? Somewhat? Only in relation to the prize money?

Does the choice of judge make a contest more (or less) attractive? Does it influence your decision at all? I know I've sometimes thought (no doubt wrongly) that a particular judge may or may not like my writing because of the impression I have of the judge's own writing, or taste.

I also wonder how far the marketing of a contest matters, in the scheme of things. There are some amazing sources out there - I'm thinking in particular of Sally Quilford's Writing Competitions Calendar - but what else should contest organisers do to attract entries? Does it help when the judges blog about what they like? When contests offer a critiquing service (usually at an extra cost)?

I'd love to know what other writers think about this subject. Is entering contests a big part of your writing life? It was a huge part of mine a couple of years back, but now I've drawn my horns in (partly because entry fees add up, partly because I'm taking longer to polish stories). Do share!

Little Episodes

Here's an important thing: a venue that supports people living with depression. Little Episodes exists to 'help de-stigmatise depression and promote compassion and understanding', and is supported by Mind, and by the Little, Brown book group, among others. Check out their website as they are doing some amazing things, with some significant talent. I especially like the K's artwork. I was touched and honoured to have a story chosen for their next anthology, Back in 5 Minutes, which will be launched in London in February. They are open for submissions all year round, and invite artists, writers and creatives to send material here.

Sense Creative Writing Awards

I've been on a couple of shortlists lately, but this one is special. Sense is a charity that campaigns on behalf of deafblind people. In March this year they will host an award ceremony at the Geffrye Museum where Miriam Margolyes will read excerpts from the winning stories. I've been shortlisted in the category, 'writing by any individual on the subject of deafblindness', for my story, A Shanty for Sawdust and Cotton. There are four awards for writing by deafblind people, and I'm excited to hear the winning pieces.

Happy St Hilary's Day!

Reputedly the coldest day of the year, and a time for feasting on a Roman scale. I'm all for that while this pesky snow lasts. I feel I should celebrate as 'Hilary' is my adopted pen-name. I took it in memory of my Great-Aunt, who was born Edna Hill but was known to all her friends as Hilary. I never knew her, but I've read her letters to my Great-Uncles, including one that begins, 'Dearest Chucky, when will you gladden my eyes with the sight of you?'

Hilary was elder sister to my grandfather, Stan Hill, who died in Batu Lintang POW camp. After the war, Hilary emigrated to America, where she was headmistress of Nightingale Bamford School in New York. She married a New Yorker, Basil, Robillard, and they lived a rare old life from all accounts, in an apartment on East 92nd Street, members of the Cosmopolitan Club and a dashing pair about town until poor Hilary was diagnosed with cancer, from which she suffered for a long time before dying in her early fifties.

Here's to Great-Aunt Hilary, and to feasting.

The heart of a story

Happy New Year! I'm late to the party, but I've been enjoying catching up with people's resolutions, all of which seem very sane and sensible. Realism is the order of the day, as I've been reading around. Who says creative people have their heads in the clouds? In fact that's probably one of the silliest myths about artists of any kind. Who gets their hands dirtier with the messy business of life than artists, of every kind? But this isn't a rant. It's a celebration. Of stamina and staying-power and sheer bloodymindedness.

Over the past few weeks and months I've come closer than I've been in ten years to giving up 'this dream of writing'. Not that it has ever felt like a dream. Ref my earlier point about mess. Then I spent a few quiet hours with some great books (I'm reading more of Alice Munro, and discovering Raymond Carver), and in my own company, asking myself questions (gently, rather than the interrogative, reproachful angle I tend to take) and I reached a conclusion that's helping me find my focus again. I'd strayed too far from the heart of what I was trying to do. In a couple of specific cases I'd been trying to tell a story from entirely the wrong perspective, in the wrong way.

I knew these were good stories, but I was beginning to think I was not the person to be telling them. Well, over the last three days I've written a clean draft of one of these - a short story that's been part of my life for years, to which I feel a debt that was probably putting too much pressure on my instinct as an artist, skewing my approach to it. I've written a clean draft and I think it's good. Too soon to say that for sure, but what I can say is that it's the closest I've come so far to telling the heart of this story in the way it deserves to be told.

In addition to this I've got a little project going on which is just a tickle at this stage but a very exciting one. I feel like a writer again, and it feels good.

Cheshire Literature Prize

It took my Christmas-fuddled brain a while to work out the meaning of the lovely letter from the Judging Panel Chair at the Cheshire Literature Prize but my entry was one of the top 25 shortlisted from over 260 entries and, as such, will be published in the Prize Anthology. The winners was Tessa Sheridan - congratulations, Tessa! - whose story lends its name to the anthology title, Zoo. I'm chuffed to have made the shortlist for this prize for those with a connection to Cheshire. I was born and raised there, before leaving to do my degree down South. But I'm a Northerner by nature, and I love to write in a Northern voice when the story suits, a silly example being this nifty flash. My paternal grandmother was a Lancashire lass, whose father owned a meat and potato pie shop in Bolton, the earnings from which paid for a whole street of houses, named Meat and Potato Row. That's Northern royalty for you. In fact my grandmother (golly, would Alan Bennett have loved to spend just ten minutes listening to her talk about her neighbours) was the basis for the main character in the shortlisted story. A tribute I like to think she'd have enjoyed. God bless you, Nan-Nan.

Merry Christmas

It's been a funny old year, hasn't it? But, hey, there's a whole new decade waiting around the corner. I'm told we must call it Twenty-Ten and not Two Thousand and Ten. Is this correct? In which case why aren't we right now in Twenty-Nine? Or are we? Dear me, these things are tricky. In any event, thank you to everyone who takes the time to read this blog and to comment and to read my stories when I link to these. I hope you have wonderful Merry Christmases, and that the new decade brings everything you hope and wish for.