COMPETITION QUANDARY

There are some people who spend their entire lives entering competitions… The heady “sixteen words or less” opportunity to “complete the well known phrase or saying” or fill in the answers in order to get an opportunity to get a little something for nothing, knowing full well that all around the country, hundreds if not thousands of people are taking a similar opportunity to respond to some marketing executive’s dream.

I can actually understand this; The thrill of the hunt, a victory snatched from the near-certainty of disappointment, or the sheer astonishment that comes when the postman knocks unexpectedly, and that nice sense of surprise when something unexpected actually turns up. Whether, in the end, it’s something you actually need or want is, of course, another matter when you can look yourself in the mirror and, however momentarily it might be, call yourself “a winner…”

I had some little success at this myself about ten years ago when my monthly magazine of choice found my particular ending to their “sentence of the month” prize-worthy and a box set of some old TV show was delivered to my house on one cheery morning, and, for about six months afterwards, I obviously had managed to tune in to that editor’s particular funny-bone wavelength, as the shiny discs and videos just kept on coming.

Right up, in fact, until they changed their entry system to a text-message based one which required far less skill and far more randomness and, having no mobile phone, I had to retire from that particular fray, and I have never won anything since, and I do seem to have lost my desire to be competitive, or, indeed, to have much in the way of ambition ever since then.

The other thing about competitions is that, sometimes, they are also a way for an amateur to get a momentary glimpse into a professional world without coming away from the experience with too many scars. Over the past decade I have entered one particular bi-annual script-writing competition three times without having any success, so when the latest one was announced I had a momentary rush of excitement, before wondering more practically whether it was really worth the effort, and whether I should actually bother going through it all over again at all....? It is, after all, a bit of a trial to get your hopes - however lowly they might be - up, only to have them dashed a few months later, despite knowing that you really never, ever stood a chance in the first place...

Because, as another odd-numbered year has turned, that very same contest has come around again, but, unfortunately, I have nothing new in my head, nor any time to write it if I had, and the sheer amount of effort that you need to pour into these things only to face not even being short-listed again is probably more than I can bear to go through again.

Maybe I should just take the hint, decide that I’m really no good at it, or don’t have my finger on the modern pulse of cutting edge theatre, and retire from the game…

And this is where the quandary begins.

I do still have one full-length play that I’ve never sent anywhere, one I wrote for a project which has since kind of faded away to nothingness, and which I’ve always believed - in that self-deceptive way I have - was actually rather good, although I haven’t yet read it through recently to find out how godawful it might actually be.

So, it’s an “old” play and I’m wondering whether or not I should just send it in…? That way I won’t miss out on a competition I’m already feeling twitchy about not entering, but it won’t need me to find vast chunks of time to create something only to end up being disappointed at its lack of success again…

However, having convinced myself that this is what I would do, and resolving to dig out the old document and reformat it to the current requirements, another theatre company announced another competition which actually requests scripts about the very themes my old play was about, and with a closing date about two-and-a-half months later than the first one, but for which the entries need to be “exclusive…”

Now I know that in all reality, I haven’t got a cat in hell’s chance with either, and that my play might not be all that good, but could I really justify the risk of entering both, even though I could give the first one a full two months to reject it before entering the second at the very last minute…? Is that a morally acceptable thing to do?

You see, yet another quandary that I’m ill-equipped to deal with.

You can tell, can’t you, that I’m really not built for the cut and thrust of the dog-eat-dog world of professional writing, so it would be better if I just slunk away, licked my wounds and faded away into a embittered old age, but that’s the trouble with competitions…

They always offer that faint glimmer of hope…