Will give feedback for a WRiTE CLUB vote!

The last entries of the last week of the preliminary bouts of the readers’ choice WRiTE CLUB contest. By this time, all the 132 writers who entered know whether they made the initial list of 30 entries. Or not. You’ve tuned in every day, noted the players and (I hope) voted and critiqued whether your piece was on the line or not.

At this point last year, when I entered the contest as a writer, I would have learned that my entries didn’t make the initial cut of 30 contestants and probably spent a few days dropping tears on my keyboard. But I still followed the contest. Still voted and critiqued. And this year, though I’m invested in the contest, not as a writer but as one of 20 initial slush pile readers, I’m still voting and critiquing.

And whether you won your round or lost (and this week’s bouts are still eligible for voting), or never saw the words you spent so much time crafting on the screen at all, I hope you’ll stay invested as well. Will still watch, vote, and critique your fellow writers. Not that you need an incentive except the chance to help fellow writers but WRiTE CLUB organizer DL Hammons has added one – everyone who sent a writing sample to the contest can receive feedback from us slush pile readers. If you vote and critique.

It doesn’t have to be in every round. Mop your tears, open your internet browser and connect. 

Even without having submitted my writing to the contest, I have a few tears to mop up. Out of the entries – a total of 189 from those 132 writers – I marked more than 70 as “favorites” after my first read-through. Plus, more than a handful of “maybes” that deserved a second reading.

image: mohamed Hassan at Pixabay

Imagine my agony as I pared those down to only 30. And tossed them into the ring with the 30 top picks of 19 other slushies, which meant only eight of my 30 ended up in the preliminary bouts. Only eight! (Although in a few instances, second entries from writers I picked made the cut.)

Still, I long to pass on my comments, compliments and congratulations to all the other writers in that packed field. I’m looking at the writer of that super creepy Gothic (“Elephant Man” meets “The Thirteenth Tale”). And the updater of Poe’s horror classic, “Premature Burial” for the 21^st century. 

And at you, sexy Scottish gladiator who makes me think, “Outlander” slays “Twilight” and wonder how you’d hit it off with the equally sexy Maserati-driving thriller heroine. 

(That last comment directly from my id raises the point – aside from the strange state of my subconscious – of why so few examples of sexuality made it into the top 30. Yes, WRiTE CLUB rules specifically excluded erotica. But sexual attraction? Sexual tension? Or why in choices between female characters with agency and females as victims, my fellow slushies preferred victims? Maybe those will be topics for another post.) 

Even as I had to sadly note “no” to some writing samples, I often found a cool premise, an interesting character, a scene that would have only needed some tweaking to make the cut.

You writers are so great, I’m sure you’ve been voting all along. But in case you haven’t. In case you’ve been in a hospital, in jail, in a war zone, or on a mountain retreat with no internet access for the last month, please note that there’s still time to participate. I’m counting on you. And case your devices lost all contact information, check DL Hammons’ site for information about how to stay connected with the contest and keep your hat in the ring for some cool prizes. Not to mention the undying friendship of a lot of other writers!