Behind the scenes of Oxford Flash Fiction - Spreadsheets, Spreadsheets, Spreadsheets
Nightmares of excel
This week, I announced the long list for the Oxford Flash Fiction Prize 2024 in partnership with the Bodleian Libraries exhibition, Kafka. This is one of my most intense and stressful weeks. Not only because I know hundreds and hundreds of people are about to collectively feel disappointed, but also because I spend a lot of time in one of the worst places on earth - Excel - to make some of those people marginally more hopeful.
It’s ironic that a person who doesn’t really like competition, would be running one.
I have so many spreadsheets. So many variables.
I will spend hours, getting people’s results together to feedback to them whether they made the top 20 percent or top 10 percent of entries. I have a separate email for those who are new to writing because it is so different when you are starting out. Even after all this hard work, gremlins get into the lists when it’s uploaded to the email provider and for some mysterious reason, it doesn’t work as it should.
Sigh.
All that work…
Sometimes, things just don’t work out quite the way that you hoped. But you have to pat yourself on the back for trying. For doing something that most competitions don’t do. Sure, I could spend more money on fancy systems that cost an extortionate amount and then up the fees for the competition… But then I would lose all I set out to do, and slowly erode the value system I set up OFFP with.
So for now, I have to accept the flaws that the value system brings - me.
That’s OK.
Nothing can be perfect.
In fact, sometimes that might be better.
I choose to let it connect me with more people in my inbox.
The next time you enter a competition, take a minute to remember little ‘old’ people like me, fretting in the background, chewing their lip into oblivion, causing themselves more agony than necessary before they go to work because they believe that the value of a competition goes beyond the winning - it motivates people.
And you hope, just hope, that it brings more good than it does bad, and keeps people writing…
You have certainly motivated me to keep on writing, thank you. I'm sure all the people who entered appreciate being told how they did, even if it isn't the news they want to hear.
You are appreciated!!