March Contest Winners
Alyssa Ast
the WM Freelance Connection. Below are the 2nd and 3rd place entries.
2nd Place
Confidence-- By Anonymous
"What do you think is the biggest obstacle in your writing career and
how do you plan on moving past it"
The biggest obstacle I have faced in regards to my writing is my own
lack of confidence. Even at a young age when people began telling me I
had a knack for writing I didn’t believe them. I had always figured
they were trying to be kind because I was a young child. It never
dawned on me that I actually did have a way with words. This held me
back in my writing for years, even to the point I stopped writing for
quit some time.
I lacked confidence about myself to such an extreme point when people
that had read my writing would mention it, I would fully deny it. I
denied my ability as a writer for many years. Eventually, I began
writing again, on occasion to express myself, but these pieces I
worked on never saw anyone’s eyes but my own,
One day, I was curious about whether or not I had any skill as a
writer so I submitted one of my hidden pieces of writing I had created
to a poetry company. To my surprise it was accepted. I figured it was
a fluke and I submitted another--which was accepted. I couldn’t
believe I had wasted so many years of writing on my own lack of
confidence in myself and my ability.
To this day, I still lack confidence in some areas of my writing. This
is mainly due to the fact that I don’t have a degree or even a high
school diploma behind me to back me up. Because of this, I lack the
confidence I need to take the initiative and apply for jobs I know I
can accomplish despite the lack of writing degrees.
While this does hold me back, I don’t plan on it holding me back for
long. I plan on returning to school to firmly acquire the skills I
feel I need for a successful career in the writing world. I fully
understand these degrees in writing are not necessary, if you have a
talent you have a talent. But for myself and my confidence as a
writer, returning to school to achieve these degrees is simply
something I NEED to do. After this is accomplished, I don’t see
anything standing in my way.
3rd Place
By David Suresh Marumundi
A writer’s career is more often than not spread across a thorny
terrain! Many writers are either acknowledged or recognized for all
intents and purposes, when they acquire the status of a consummate
writer. It certainly takes immense struggle amidst stormy waters to
surge ahead of the obstacles that one or the other writers may
encounter on their way to fame or success.
I presume such known obstacles—like the writer’s block, time,
rejection and recompense—may lug a writer away from reaching the
pinnacle of success, while some personal factors—like limited
vocabulary and wherewithal, in archetypal cases (like mine)—are just
as instrumental as ever in hampering the success of a writer.
To my bewilderment, a little past my writing career (still a toddler),
I realized that, more than the known factors (surprisingly never a
bother) the ones that I considered less prominent have played more
havoc with my writing career.
For instance, one of my biggest obstacles—limited vocabulary—resulted
in robbing of my precious hours. I would spend incredible amount of
time editing, rewriting and redoing things, until I get fed up. I
would always require a fair amount of time over the rational time
required usually to write something. The reason: English has not been
my first language or I wasn’t a native English speaker/writer. But
whatever it is, I try my best always to overcome this hitch by
learning the finer nuances of grammar and vocabulary through tedious
practice, exercise and reading; much needed though to catapult me
towards more affluent meadows.
Another obstacle that impedes my success is ‘rejection’. It was never
easy for me to swallow the pain of rejection; it pesters me like the
presence of a carbuncle on the most sensitive area of my body. All
that it takes is taut determination and torrid passion to trample the
haughty pain of ‘rejection’ and tread the path of success. But at the
present I am trying to gain mastery over it.
In between, while I am struggling to overcome these obstacles, I
practice the art of reading and writing with zealous religiosity as I
remember the saying “to be a well-flavored man is the gift of fortune,
but to write or read comes by nature” by William Shakespeare and
"reading makes a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an
exact man" by Sir Francis Bacon.
By David Suresh Marumudi, Senior Technical Writer & Freelance Creative
Writer, Hyderabad, India, AP
David Suresh
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Alyssa Ast
| Hello David, It is posted live on the site. www.alyssaast.webs.com --- On Tue, 3/23/10, David Suresh <mdss...@gmail.com> wrote: |