SLOGANS FUN
Hone your writing skills, build your confidence Hone your writing skills, build your confidence and earn some cash on the side with snippets and slogans, as Rebecca Douglas explains
Rebecca Douglas
I’ve been writing professionally for over eight years now, mostly non-fiction articles for magazines, newspapers and online outlets ranging from 600-2,000 words. Before these paid commissions, however, I built up both my selfediting skills and my confidence in getting published through unusual means – I entered competitions. I don’t mean writing competitions, I’m talking those sweet-packet contests to win a Paris holiday by writing why you deserve it in “25 words or less” (it’s always ‘less’, although of course it should be ‘fewer’ if we’re being grammatically correct).
Not only did the strict word count in these promotions force me to hone my micro-fiction editing skills, I learnt how to be funny, poetic and engaging in a tiny space. And I was good at it. I won trips to Japan and Melbourne, a $1,000 shopping spree, a year’s supply of toilet paper, magazine subscriptions, a coffee machine, and countless other prizes. Apart from scoring me some lovely loot, these wins felt like bite-sized pieces of validation of my writing ability, without having invested too much time, money and mental energy to achieve them. In fact, it was tons of fun to do.
Once you look, you can find these kinds of competitions lurking everywhere – in the supermarket (often in the junk food aisles and in special displays at the front of the store); on radio station, TV network and magazine websites; and in your inbox if you’ve signed up to certain (often clothing) brands’ loyalty card programs. Increasingly, you’ll also find them in your social media feeds, especially Facebook and Instagram.