You Should Enter That Contest

by Nicole Evans (@thought_stained)

If you stumbled upon this blog post, you might be considering entering #ShoreIndie, a new contest for emerging Indie writers to win free editing and support through your writing journey. (Want more details? Check out this blog post here.) But you also might be feeling some apprehension or some nervousness thinking about submitting your work into a contest. You might still be on the fence whether that’s a risk you want to take.

As someone who has entered into three such contests and not won a single one, I want to encourage you to enter that contest.

A year ago, I was also in your shoes. Only battling in the query trenches a few times before and receiving rejection after rejection, I was wary about opening myself up to “failure” once more. I had doubts that my work was truly ready. I was nervous to send my work out to be critiqued, worried that the feedback would find it wanting and I’d be discouraged to keep trying. Before finally convincing myself to enter, I had this false idea that you could only gain something from Twitter-based contests if you won.

I was very happily mistaken.