Contests, discouragement, and the dangers of writing late at night. · 2:14am Nov 2nd, 2012
So, I recently learned a rather important lesson on writing: Contests are not for me. I attempted to write a story for the EQD Nightmare Night contest recently, and I did not like how it turned out at all. Of course, I ended up finishing it at about 2:00 AM the night before the deadline, and I was really sleepy, so I published it regardless. Immediately, regretting that, I kinda shut down for a while, and I haven't really visited this site since then until just now, when I deleted the previously mentioned story.
I am a slow writer. The concept of my horror story has tons of potential, but I was stupid to think that I could figure it out in a week for a contest. I essentially crapped out a one-shot for what should have been a multi-part story, and it wasn't scary. Now that I know that I simply cannot attempt to write within any sort of concrete time frame, that should hopefully never happen again.
Back to writing my next story I go. It'll be a straight adventure this time, though not with the characters you'd expect. Just don't expect a date on it.
Perpetual Lurker
Fair enough.