Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

The Contest Component

The Contest Component

As Karen and I were developing the Exploratory Writing Workshop (EWW) we had frequent discussions regarding the contest component. We went back and forth over whether or not to include it.

Actually the EWW didn’t need it. The classroom forum could have easily served that purpose and the class could have gotten along quite well without it. At several points she had me convinced that we should do away with it altogether and I was persuaded to her point of view. Then for some reason neither one of us could bring ourselves to put it to rest. What we decided to do was not make it a WDC contest but an in-house NHA contest.

I am glad we left it at that because the idea for the EWW had its genesis in the WDC contest forum. It was there that I got the idea for the course from my own submissions of vignettes that had a common backstory and characters. It was to test drive these characters that I got interested in the contest’s to begin with.

At this point I think I need to encourage my students to enter their vignettes in the NHA contest. I want to do this for the following reasons.

1. A writer needs to make a work all it can be and if they know it is going to get a contest scrutiny they will be more inclined to turn in a quality submission.

2.There is something about a competition that brings out the best in a writer.

3. I am sure I have entered over fifty (50) contests and can count my wins on one hand. That, however, is not the reason I enter. I do it to see what others will say, see how many views it gets, and experiment with ideas, story lines and characters. So winning is not a big issue with me nor should it be with my students.

4. If a writer’s goal is publication, then they need to start writing in a manner that represents the best they can produce. Writing something sloppy and thinking that later you can clean it up just doesn’t work for me. A contest forces me to submit early and make constant revisions right up to the time of review.

5.It could be that some students in other NHA classes might want to participate and thereby help them develop an interest in EWW and possibly take the course in the future.

6. Finally it might offer a new direction. That is that each semester one of the classes in session be responsible for a weekly prompt. It could be a way of advertising to all the students the full range of courses being offered and test the waters.

So these are the reasons I think the contest is a good idea and I hope by testing it in-house this semester, we can discover if it has a broader application than just the EWW.