Submitted a story for a contest

So I've gone and done it now. I submitted a story for an Esquire contest. Never done that before, but then, lately there have been a lot of things like that popping up.

I have a non-fiction piece that I wrote that doesn't fit a particular market - The whole idea of writing needing to fit a particular market is somewhat offensive. I consider writing a form of art. Art just is what it is, and on some level, the integrity of that needs to be respected.

I was talking with a friend the other day about the whirlwind of controversy one of my stories is likely to generate. I don't like controversy and don't write for that purpose. Yet I can see it coming on the horizon. She said to me that "Art is Controversy." Or maybe I imagined that she said it, because it's what I wanted to hear?

I used to write when I was a kid, because I enjoyed doing it. Then I stopped, because the more people told me I was good at it, the less of a challenge it became for me. Instead, I took a different path. It's been quite an adventure up to now, and I've grown and learned a lot along the way. I find myself having come full circle and writing again.

I enjoy writing for the sport of it, but I don't want it to become a contact sport. I'm all about the refinement of manifesting a concept into characterizations and dialogue. Perhaps my writing never had been art before, until it became controversial and stirred up folks emotions.

Today at my regular challenging job, someone was talking about The Secret and the idea of the Law of Attraction. A small group of us debated if we believed in that or not. I fully believe in it, but I don't feel that I like the way in which it was packaged for a market. If memory serves me from when I read the book, it talked about attracting to oneself power, success and money. Of course, it was marketed that way on some level, because what sells is the idea of people getting those things.

Maybe my anticipation of controversy is related to the Law of Attraction. So I could go hide myself in a fox hole or get on with the idea and face off with it like the great warrior I am.