Healthy Competition

[mattcowens]

My wife Debbie and I have both been writing short, speculative fiction recently and sending stories out to various sites.  Writing is an immensely satisfying activity, as is reading and critiquing the writing of others.  When it comes to sending stories out, however, there is an element of competition that arises

Comments

[a_r_williams]

I saw your story on Every Day Fiction and stopped by here. Pretty good, nice story.

As far as this post, I think that type of competition is not the best for a relationship. There are plenty of other writers to "compete" against. Why add someone that can be one of your biggest supporters to the list?

In truth, I think the real competition of every writer is to write better than they currently can. The goal isn't, or shouldn't be, to out do someone else. Although, it can sometimes help to compare yourself to people both better and worse than you--mainly so that you can figure out what works and what doesn't. But that's just my two cents :)

[mattcowens]

Thanks for stopping by!

I have to say I agree with everything you've said. Debbie and I seem to have been lucky and careful enough to remain each other's biggest supporters while technically competing for spots in some of the same markets.

The coolest thing to happen thus far in that regard is the Shades of Sentience anthology that's coming out in April from sentientonline.net. They offered me a spot, then a couple weeks later Debbie got in too, so we get to share our first anthology outing :-)

[a_r_williams]

Congrats!