[Max Goodman]

Hi, Matt,

When I send multiple entries, I do it in separate messages sent from the same email address and with the same postal address. In the past, I've also sent multiple entries in a single email with the pseudonym alongside my real name. That seems to work, too. Lucy doesn't seem to be much of a stickler about such things.

I haven't tried multiple entries with Tessa (except that when the toast comp got repeated I resubmitted the previous year's entry along with a new poem. Tessa apparently didn't care for either).

P.S.: It's Noam D. Plum. Plume would be silly.

[Matt Q]

Thanks Max, that's good to know.

[Jayne Osborn]

Hey, Max, you've provided me with another opportunity to say that I've had a win in The Speccie and The Oldie competitions with the same poem, but about a year apart. It must be... oh, at least a year since I last mentioned it.

I don't know the number of times I've won but as I subscribe to both magazines I do keep all the copies in which I get even the slightest mensh. Like others have said, though, quite often the topic doesn't float my boat at all, especially the prose comps or political ones. (I don't have a single poem about Corbyn, May, Cameron, Boris, even Trump... none of 'em!)

I'm not interested in winning for winning's sake - I generally strive to submit poems that might be useful additions to my repertoire, for readings, and if I win I read the poem to an audience from the actual magazine; it has more clout that way.

But I love seeing so many of ''us'' on the pages of The Speccie and The Oldie, and get a kick out of declaring "That one's written by my friend... and that one... and that one..."

Jayne

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Nicholas Stone

I think it's always been the case for Speccie/Staggers &c. that when I've sent more than one, it's the one I think is worse that gets chosen (if any).

That often happens to me, which is why my sister "wins" rather more often than I do these days.

[Gail White]

Yes, we need to revive the word treen -- I learned it from Elizabeth I's Bishop Jewel, who said "In the old days we had treen chalices and golden priests, but now we have treen priests and golden chalices."

[Max Goodman]

Apparently there will be no more 2018 comp results, so my year's project is complete. I met my goal (finished 8th--7th if I include the pseudonyms I'm aware of: Brian and his pals breeze well past me while my one pseudonymous win inches me past two others) but I don't think it means as much as I thought when I set the goal.

When I was competing casually and sporadically, I imagined a large cadre of high-volume submitters. Having paid closer attention to the results for a year, I now think most of us compete casually and sporadically. By setting a goal for the year and deciding to compete regularly I gained an advantage over most (in a contest in which they didn't intend to compete). Among those who competed as regularly as I did (56 of the year's 63 comps), I likely finished in the bottom half, possibly even dead last.

The two main things I learned:

* Being paid is really validating! Though the amounts aren't large, getting a regular check for writing poems has gone farther toward making me feel my poems are valued than anything else I've yet managed to do with them. It's lead me to go back and track what I've been paid over my "career," and while my biggest paydays came elsewhere, nearly half of the poems I've been paid for (21 of the 46) appeared in The Speccie. Kudos to Lucy for so frequently recognizing that my poems are worth something.

* I cannot predict Lucy's taste. I've sent her things I think are great, and things I think are weaker; she's published both types and she's rejected both types. And she's occasionally proven me wrong when I thought entries were outside of the Speccie comps' style range.

It might be of interest that 130 different names got at least one mention in the comps this year, 98 in the Speccie and 61 in the Oldie (with, of course, a lot of overlap). I know of 8 of those that are pseudonyms for other people on the list, and here and there are names that might be duplicates (P.T. Brown and Paul Brown, for instance). These stats come from Speccie 3029-78 and Oldie 223-236 (yes, I know that's 14 months (!), but the results from 223 were posted in January, so that's where I started).

Moving forward, I'm likely to compete more frequently than I did before, but less frequently than I did this year.

I'm glad I gave this a try. I'm glad I hit my goal. I'm glad the year (of pressuring myself to enter and of tracking all the results) is over.

[Nicholas Stone]

Well done Max - both on sticking at it and doing so well with your entries. Interesting to read your reflections on it.

[Adrian Fry]

Max, thanks for your reflections on your experience. You are very honest in admitting the motivating power of money; I would not do the comps if there were no prizes.

[Ann Drysdale]

For me, it's still the "eager puppy" thing. The response to the prompt: "You want? I give". It's someone saying, "I like that". It's the vindication of my belief in something I've made.

Sickening, innit?

[Chris O'Carroll]

Congratulations, Max, on your successful Year of Living Competitively. I look forward to seeing more winning entries from you in 2019. And I'll do my best to remain civil in weeks when you win and I don't.