Competitions

Before I get caught up with actually writing my novel (for a change) when NaNoWriMo starts on Tuesday, Ist November, I thought I'd mention these competitions. Plenty of encouragement to get the creative juices flowing!

The New Writer Prose and Poetry Competitions
Lots of great competitions. Closing date: 30th November 2011
Full details on TNW website

SAW St Andrew's Day Short Story Competition
Short stories of between 1,500 and 2,000 words - judged by Robin Pilcher.
Closing date: 30th November 2011. Full details here

Commonwealth Short Story Prize
Short Story between 2,000 and 5,000 words
Closing date: 30th November 2011. Full details here

The following is an unusual competition I've been asked to mention - warning: it's absolutely feminist!
Mookychick Feminist Flash 2011
Poem or fiction under 200 words. Full details on website

Good luck!
Rosemary

Introducing C.K.Volnek

I'm delighted to welcome fellow MuseItUp tween author, C.K. Volnek, to my Flights of Imagination blog today. C.K.'s wonderful debut novel, Ghost Dog of Roanoke Island, is an imaginative contemporary story inspired by a real mystery on the island from the 16th century.

Please pop over and say hello to C.K. on Flights of Imagination!

Rosemary

Lavender Dreams - Anthology for Cancer Research

I'm delighted to announce that a new anthology, 'Lavender Dreams', has just been released from one of my Canadian publishers, MuseItUp, and it includes one of my short stories. The collection is in memory of one of the well-loved editors who died from cancer earlier this year. I'm so pleased it's released in the week I'm celebrating fifty plus years of a relatively healthy life, as it reminds me of others. I dedicated my story to my lovely mother who survived a major operation for cancer many years ago and lived cancer-free to enjoy another ten years or so before she passed on at 80 years of age.

Lavender Dreams contains ten stories: fiction, fiction based on a true story, and one non-fiction. My story is called 'Waiting' and is fiction based on an actual incident. The idea is that stories from different Muse authors will be featured another year, so that the book always remains fresh. All royalties from the authors and the cover artist will go to cancer research. It is also coming out in print in a couple of weeks and will be available on Amazon as well as from the publisher.

If you would like to buy a copy to support cancer research, Lavender Dreams is now available in ebook from:

MuseItUp Publishing (all e-formats) at $1.99
Kindle Amazon (US) at $2.30
Kindle Amazon (UK) at £1.44

If anyone would like to display this lovely badge on the side of their blog, please feel free to support it in this way! Thank you.

Rosemary

NaNo Decision Made!

Well, I've pondered all the comments here and elsewhere and thought long and hard about signing up for NaNo, and I made my decision half an hour ago. I am now signed up and, if not quite ready to roll, at least I'm trying to get other things up to date so I can start as organised as possible on November 1st.

Thank you all so much for the advice and opinions - all gratefully received. I'm going to treat it as a fun challenge to try and cut down my terrible procrastination. And if you think I'm kidding about my lack of focus, I'm still a bit undecided which piece of writing to tackle during the challenge. These are the contenders:

• Continue the Regency novel that already has 22,000 words - but even that needs restructuring
• Continue another Regency novel that has only 3,000 words but might be fun to write
• Continue the contemporary novel set in Scotland that already has 14,500 words
• Continue the contemporary novel set in Scotland that already has almost 16,000 words
• Write the late Victorian crime novel that has only 2,200 words and a rough synopsis
• Write the 12th century novel that has only 2,700 words so far
• Continue changing a 2000 words short story set in 16th century Venice into a novel
• Continue the children's time-slip novel set partly in Ancient Egypt that has about 7,000 words so far

And that's just the novels that are already started! I'm also redrafting another children's novel and a mainstream adult novel to send out. Let's forget about all the short stories for the moment!

Shocking lack of focus isn't it? In my slight defense, some of these novels were started for the purpose of entering the novel competitions at our annual Scottish conference (for a critique). Only I didn't finish them afterwards and started another one each year - apart from the tween novel being published finally in March 2012). And I completed the mainstream novel that had a good NWS report from the RNA last year (now looking for an agent). And of course, one previous NWS Regency finally made it to publication this year.

Remember I mentioned I was a butterfly writer? Now you see the evidence! So, one decision is already made - need to make the other one this week so I can register the title of my NaNo novel. But I promise you, I need that month of focus!

Edits and NaNoWriMo

I'm right in the middle of the second edits of my forthcoming Tween novel, 'Summer of the Eagles', and I'm enjoying them immensely. Not because I don't have many (I do!) but I'm learning so much from this particular content editor. The publisher, MuseItUp (MuseItYoung imprint), is Canadian, the editor is American, and I'm allowed to keep my British spelling and phrases where possible. But what a lot I'm learning - about using active verbs and getting rid of far too much use of words like 'was', 'had', 'would', and so on. I don't always agree with every suggestion, and Susan is happy with that as she wants me to think for myself and keep my own voice. I'm now going to go through all my other writing and put some of this into practise - I hope!

I've been reading and hearing a lot about the annual NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) and I must admit I'm tempted to sign up for the first time. I'm a bit wary about the committment to try and write 50,000 words in one month, as I have a competition to judge during November, as well as the other writing projects on the go. BUT... I can't quite get into my next Regency novel as much I should and that's about the number of words I still need to finish it.

The connection between the edits and NaNoWriMo is that the whole philosophy behind the November writing month is to switch off your internal editor, forget about spelling, punctuation and grammar, and get the story down. As a panster type of writer, I think this might be an ideal way for me to move on with the book. After the month's challenge, of course, the book then has to be redrafted and edited, but I love that part of the process. It's getting the initial full length book written that's my problem as I'm too easily distracted by other writing.

So, I'd love some advice, opinions and experiences about NaNoWriMo, please, from anyone who has tackled it in a previous year. Or even if you're thinking of signing up this year. I need to decide soon!

Rosemary

Interviewed on Jude's blog

The fascinating Jude Johnson, who I profiled on my Author Spotlight last week, has now posted an interview with me about writing and Dangerous Deceit on her own lovely blog, Words that Remain.

Thanks, Jude!
Rosemary

Monday Market: The First Line

I found details of this intriguing little journal and thought their 'first line' approach to stories very useful for kickstarting ideas, as well as for submissions to their publication. They provide the first line of a story and entries should be between 300 and 3,000 words.

The first line for the current submission is 'It had been a long year', and entries should be emailed by November 1st 2011. They offer a token payment of $20 for published stories, but it's also a great site for first line ideas. This is often all we need to start the seeds of a storyline, so it's a valuable creative exercise.

Full details and rules of submission are on The First Line website.

Rosemary