Guest Blogger – Jessie Ansons

Jessie Ansons How to keep motivated when you never seem to win

I recently came second place in the Newcastle Herald’s Summer Short Story competition with my story, The Deepest of Blues. I won my first ever prize for writing and it felt fantastic. Friends and family congratulated me, my story was published online, my name printed in the paper… it was a moment well worth celebrating.

But for every winner, there are loads who didn’t win. I know this because I have been that ‘not-winner’ many, many times over.

The Herald comp had just three winners. Then there were twenty-odd shortlisted entrants who almost made it, more than a hundred who entered but never heard back, and hundreds, maybe thousands, of writers who considered entering the comp but for whatever reason didn’t meet the deadline.

That’s a lot of ‘not-winners’.

Over the ten years prior to this one…