You don't have to map for competitions only... if there's no-one around, just start a map of your own. It's for fun, not for competitions primarily...
I won't join any compo soon because of time constraints, but I've got a HL2DM map in the works which has been well-received on playtests so far. That gives me more of a kick than winning a competition.
Not that having two compo's running at the same time is a bad idea, but for now it's just not going to happen, so, let's make the best of it.