Reasons for Entering Writing Contests

The reason for entering writing contests is because it's fun. It's challenging. And it's practice. The more you do something, the better you get, no matter what it is. It was my driving force with Art. The more I drew, painted, or sculpted, the better I got. And I got real good just from practice. Then, as I chronicled in an earlier post, I actually learned the science of art from Professor Stewart at San Jose State. Yeah, believe it or not, there is a science to drawing and painting. It was developed by Leonardo da Vinci, and it's no secret to anyone in the know.

As for writing, there are formulas, like you learn from Donald Maass in his book Writing the Breakout Novel, and many others, and there is countless advice on how to write well, but I'm not sure it's a science. It's such a subjective thing. How many times have we heard that? That's the difference between Art and Writing. Sure, in art, there is the abstract movement, and all the variations of it in today's modern art world. (Actually, modern art dates back to the Nineteenth Century, but it has evolved in many subjective ways of its own.) But so many rules are broken in writing, that the subective nature of writing is way over the top. You know...you can have sentence fragments, you can use bad grammar, you don't even have to use punctuation...etc., etc...

But for the most part...the more you write the better you get. And as far as entering writing contests, even if you never win, you will still become a better writer for doing it. And, like I said...it's fun.