Hello everyone!
Today I’m going to be discussing something I haven’t really mentioned before on this blog. I previously wrote a post about my personal writing journey (go check it out if you haven’t already!) but I wasn’t too specific about anything or what I was specifically doing with my writing now. Here I plan to reveal all that. If you are an aspiring writer or you write for fun but don’t know what to do with your finished work, keep reading to learn what you can do to get yourself out there!
- Just sit down and WRITE. I often had/still have trouble finding time to just write and run with my ideas, but that’s honestly the best way to start. If you’re serious about writing, you just have to go and get started. Eventually something will flow out on the page, and you can edit/go from there. Make sure you can set aside time in your schedule- block it out in your calendar if you have to.
- Be gentle to yourself. Don’t worry about making everything perfect on the first try or deleting pieces that are bad. You can always edit a first draft, but you need that first draft in order for anything to come out of it. Acknowledge that you’re just getting ideas out and that you’re exploring, not trying to write an award-winning book right away.
- Follow writing blogs/Instagram accounts/etc. This is something I’ve done recently, and it’s made such a difference! If you’re seeing posts about writing pop up in your social media feed, you’re more likely to be inspired and come up with new ideas. Also, a lot of these accounts will have helpful tips and tricks for editing and such, so there’s a lot of knowledge to be gained.
- Write without specific goals in mind. If you’re in the middle of a specific writing project then yes, definitely make some sort of a schedule/timeline to keep you motivated and on track. However, this article is mainly aimed at beginners, so that most likely isn’t the situation you’re in; in which case, don’t pressure yourself to produce a certain amount of writing or give yourself deadlines! It will bring you unnecessary stress and prevent ideas from organically flowing. Let the ideas come to you and execute them to your best ability (quality over quantity!) rather than trying to squeeze them out.
Now that I’ve given you a few tips to get started and hone your craft, here’s a bunch of places you can submit your finished work to! You don’t have to try and get published if you don’t want to; you can obviously keep your work to yourself or write purely for fun, but it can be fun to try and get recognized for a piece you’re particularly proud of. Some of these are yearly/regular publications and others are just contests, but there’s lots of options to choose from based on what you’re looking for; as a rule, normal publications will usually let you submit work of any subject, whereas most contests have prompts or themes.
- Polyphony Lit – I stumbled upon this literary publication (almost completely run by teens!) and fell in love with the work they published. In fact, any teenager can sign up to be a First Reader editor, so I did that and am now part of their staff. They publish poetry, fiction, and creative non-fiction and accept submissions basically year-round. https://www.polyphonylit.org
- Scholastic Art and Writing Awards – I feel like this is a very well-known contest due to its long history and prestige; it’s very competitive and there’s categories for pretty much every art form, not just writing. The submission period is September to December and hundreds of thousands of works are submitted each year. You can submit any genre of writing and I believe as many works as you want; it’s very flexible. www.artandwriting.org
- Just Poetry!!! National Poetry Quarterly – I submitted a poem here not too long ago. As the name suggests, they publish an issue every season/quarter. There is a 20 line limit and you can only submit one poem per quarter, but it’s pretty open-ended otherwise. http://justpoetry.org/submissions
- NY Times (various high school contests) – I was surprised to find in my searches that the NY Times has lots of youth writing contests throughout the year. There are a couple they do annually but other than that I think it just depends so you’ll have to check their website for opportunities regularly. Here’s an example of winners’ work from a blackout poetry contest they held: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/13/learning/winners-of-our-blackout-poetry-contest.html?searchResultPosition=1
- Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Contest – This is a fun one that I submitted to this year as well! There’s a few categories, but the ones specific to writing are poetry and prose. There’s a new theme each year (2020’s is Climate Hope: Transforming Crisis) and the point of the contest is to communicate about environmental issues, specifically regarding the ocean. www.bowseat.org
- YoungArts – YoungArts is a national arts competition that’s structured very differently from all the other things I’ve mentioned here. You can submit your work within many art disciplines (there’s music, film, etc. in addition to writing), and you get selected as a finalist, you will get the opportunity to attend National YoungArts Week in Miami and take master classes/workshops with distinguished people in the field. Being selected also makes you eligible to be a U.S. Presidential Scholar. http://www.youngarts.org/apply
I’ve found these places through lots of random Internet searches, but there’s definitely tons more contests and publications out there. If you want to search for more, here are some links to collective lists: https://thejohnfox.com/2016/06/writing-contests-for-teens/ https://cty.jhu.edu/resources/academic-opportunities/competitions/art_writing.html www.newpages.com
I hope this article inspires you guys to embark on your writing journeys and start creating some beautiful pieces! I would love to hear from any fellow writers or read some of your work. I’m definitely not a professional author or anything like that, but I’ve been working on my writing for a while now and it’s been really fun to explore the discipline. Let me know if you guys would like more posts centered around writing! Lots more content is coming soon, especially the back to school related posts, so keep an eye out for that as well.
-Brooke
adventures of a typical high school student 