The Race

Dean Wesley Smith has a great article in his archives about a competition that he and several writer friends embarked on early in his career. The basics premise of this competition was to encourage prolific writing and to generate professional sales. Here is how it works.

For a given week, every short story you have out to publisher counts as 1 point, every query package (query letter plus first three chapters) counts as 3 points and every full novel manuscripts counts as 8 points. You get no credit for simultaneous submissions.

Dean and his cohorts carried this on for nearly two years. Those who, after about eighteen months, had a score approaching 50 or higher went on to become published authors. He lists Kevin J. Anderson, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Nina Kiriki Hoffman, Ray Vukcevich and Geoff Landis as those who did well in the contest. Obviously those are some successful individuals.

I and a few others have taken up the mantle and are participating in our own sort of race based on the same rules. I’ve linked their websites below.

Brad R. Torgersen
David Steffen

Based on the above scoring system my current score is 5. Brad has 6 and David is clocking in at 7 as of this writing. I’ll keep this page updated with my score weekly.

Another great article that plays into this contest idea and is another mentality that I subscribe to is that you should be able to write, self-edit and send one short story per week. I’ll keep you updated on that as well.

Wish me luck!