I Meant To Do So Much More

For the past few years, I've been writing to the various erotic arts festivals and asking them if they'd consider adding the written word to their programs. No one ever wrote back. But this year, the Seattle Erotic Arts Festival added short stories, plays, and (I think) poetry competitions. The guidelines were a bit difficult. Five pages. No word count, just five pages. That worked out to about 2300 words. (Everything depends on how much dialog you have, and how long your paragraphs run.) This is a great opportunity, but since it's the first year, gaming it is difficult. What do I mean by gaming it? Well, if nothing GLBT finals, chances are it's not worth sending any GLBT stories in. Same with BDSM. So I meant to send in the limit of three stories: one GLBT, one BDSM, and one vanilla hetero (do I even write those? oh yeah, I did once) to increase my odds. Unfortunately, time slipped away during my "not writing" period from December to the beginning of March. Since they were only taking unpublished entries, I would have had to start from scratch on all three. I meant to, but I ran out of time. So I ruthlessly edited down the one piece I had ready to go, which is gay erotica, and sent it off. I'm crossing my fingers that since this is Seattle, the sexuality of the characters won't be an issue. I don't do well in contests. Never have. Probably never will. (and I'm always astounded and irked by what does win). But, as I said, I'd been poking them to add written word for so long that I had to do something to support their decision. I got an email saying they had over a hundred entries. That's a great start for the first year. I hope that they continue to run this contest in future years. And I hope that other erotic arts festivals pick up on this idea. I just wish I could have done more.