On being judged

This blog about writing has, it seems, veered more into writing about blogging.  

This is the result of the juxtaposition of the blogging workshop I attended earlier this week, and the Best Australian Blogs Competition 2012, in which DD is a nominee in the words and writing category.  So let's just call April blogging month, and trust that when the excitement dies down, Destination: denouement will resume a more writerly tone. 

In the meantime, I’ve been glued to my site analytics, trying to divine whether our distinguished competition judge(s) have passed through, but I am no wiser.  So, if you are reading this and you’re a judge, welcome!  Take a seat, make yourself comfortable.  Please take a moment to enjoy the Denouement ambiance.  Would you like a cup of tea? 

Old woman pouring tea, unknown artist...
by Black Country Museums @ Flickr

It is a strange feeling to know that your personal work is being assessed, critiqued, scored.  But as writers, this is an essential part of our métier.  Eventually someone will be reading what we have written, and deciding if it’s good or not.  Feedback is an important tool to improve our writing, and there are a number of ways to get it. 

Probably the least useful is to launch your untested work directly at its intended publisher in the hope of an encouraging reply.  Asking your proud mum/spouse/infatuated friend may not be very helpful either, unless these people have a literary bent and an uncanny degree of objectivity.  Instead it is better to find someone with experience or a shared interest in writing.  A writers’ group or feedback circle can be one way to find such people, even if this is online.

Receiving feedback in a group situation can be challenging, especially when you have sweated over several revisions of a piece.  It’s good to remember that many people will have many different opinions, and they can’t all be right.  You’re not required to agree with all of them, but do consider their merit.  Be thoughtful.  But also be pragmatic.  Not everyone will be prepared to push themselves into the space where they can understand what it is you were trying to do, especially if it’s different to what they are used to.  Feedback is just a tool.  You can pick it up, and you can also put it down when it’s no longer useful to you. 

Most importantly, criticism is only ever about the work that you've done, and not about you. Take a deep breath and separate the two.  This can be hard when you're just getting started.  That is when feedback can be most fraught but also most beneficial.  So be bold, and invite the challenge.  Treat it like the learning experience that it’s meant to be.  I don’t know if I'll ever discover the truth of exactly how Destination: denoument has fared in the Best Australian Blogs Competition (oh yeah, unless it WINS), but the rigour of being judged has done me some good, regardless.

Best Australian Blog?

I’m thinking of entering this blog in a competition.  And not just any competition. The Sydney Writers’ Centre Best Australian Blogs Competition.

Destination: denouement – a Best Australian Blog?  How terribly vain.  But I’m heartened by an award category for blogs that are less than 6 months old.  Mostly because Destination: denouement’s newness is its overriding characteristic.  All those hardened blog veterans can’t wave a virtual candle at my level of inexperience and gauche disregard for the conventions of blogging.

The main convention I’ve been flouting* is the one that the competition refers to as engagement.  The popularity-club side of blogging.  I’ve seen it at work in the world of wildly successful mummy blogs, some of which are fabulous.  Others are entirely vacuous and equally popular.  I know it has a lot to do with linking and commenting on other blogs, pushing content across platforms, and riding the fickle wave of popular attention through its erratic three-second shifts.  I understand how soc-med platforms work, but I’m just not very good at it.  Yet.

I’m just as gangly and socially awkward in soc-med circles as I was when I was trying to unravel the mysteries of teenage popularity at school.  I don’t know which was worse – that I didn’t have a clue about popularity or that I didn’t really care.  Despite this insouciance, I shot to the dizzying heights of rock-stardom years later in a library studies course.  I had all the right accessories – ninja search engine skills, smoking hot Dewey Decimal reflexes, and a brown cardigan.  I was the library studies poster child, but this popularity was effortless, not derived from any conscious effort or strategy.  

Blog engagement, on the other hand, requires consistent effort and strategy.  And time.  Whereas I have a cake-eating elephant slowing me down.  The other competition criteria are the quality of writing, and presentation and usability. 



SWC Best Australian Blogs - judging criteria

I will be entering Destination: denouement in the “words and writing” category.  There is also a People’s Choice award, which I am also (hilariously) going to enter, mostly because the irony will have me cackling on the inside for weeks.  Because I’m pretty sure that entering this category at all diminishes my already tiny likelihood of success.  But if you happen upon this post, feel free to humour me with a vote.  Even if it’s only out of appreciation for my sheer contrariness.

All of which amounts to a not very good chance in the Best Australian Blogs competition.  But there are benefits to entering anyway.  Like the possibility that someone like you might actually wander along and stop by for a read.  So I’d better get the place looking tidy and make sure I’ve got the tea and biscuits ready when you do.

*ETA:  flouting ≠ flaunting, which is what I originally wrote.  Edit, people!