Contests, a fast track to getting published

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense. Tom Clancy.

Sites to see, places to go and groups to join
My Writing Friend: writingfriend@earthlink.net This is a great place to hone your writing skills.
Nick Daws Writers Circle: Click link on this page. I'm a moderator on this site, It's awesome.

Online Writing Workshop: http://sff.onlinewritingworkshop.com/ Want feedback for your work?

Newbie Writers: http://www.newbiewriters.com/ Great place to meet other newbies

I’ll be adding to the above list as I find more newbie friendly sites.

What about contests? When I first started writing, again, I worked exclusively on my novel. Day in, day out. Plodding along toward a distant goal of being published. I became impatient after about ten months and started to yearn for a little recognition. My novel, should it be published, won’t happen for at least another year. That’s a mighty long time for any new writer (Specially me) to go before he or she can lay claim to the illustrious title of “Writer.” I started casting about for a quicker means of obtaining clips and having something, anything, published.

Lo and behold, I ran across a little contest in Australia. http://www.authorsunlimited.net/ had a contest going on. It looked easy enough,I really didn’t have to write much, though I did have to be original. Well, to make a long story short, I won second place. That got me an autographed book and the right to lay claim to the title “Professional Writer”.

Does it matter that it was only a contest? NOOO, the point is that I wrote something, entered a contest, and what I wrote won something. Ergo, Professional.

No, it's not a big thing, not to most, but for the aspiring writer it's the spark that can ignite a career. It took me days to stop walking about with my chest puffed out with pride. LOL There are so many contests out there; it’s just a matter of finding ones that fit with what a person writes.

Mystery? Fantasy? Romance? Poetry? I have entered several more contests and have some poetry and a short story in competition. It doesn’t take very long to write these short pieces and while waiting to get the results, I just keep plugging away at my novel. Maybe by the time I’m ready to send my novel to a publisher, they won’t look at it and say “Who?”

Next time: Joining writers chat rooms and forums. There are some very good reasons to do so.

In This Writers View

A word or two for Newbies:

As Walt Whitman once said, “Writing is easy, all you have to do is cross out the wrong words.”

I was a newbie last year and probably set some kind of record in Newbieville as being the Newbie with the most time in that category. Yes, that’s right, I’ve been a newbie for forty some odd years. Goes without saying that I’m an expert. I wrote a small piece of poetry when I was around 20. Got published in the San Fernando News (A suburb of Los Angeles) and was thrilled.
Then I dropped my writers pencil somewhere and couldn’t find it. In the meantime I went to work, paid bills, got married three times over, and did lots of other mundane things. Last year, I found my old writers pencil again, packed away in a cobwebby corner of my mind. I always knew I could write. The pencil and my muse instantly got together and plotted my demise as a normal human being. It worked! I started to write, and then realized how very much I didn’t know.
" OK," says I, "I’ll learn." Internet here I come! Three software programs and 8 books later, here I am, on the verge of being published, once again. Perhaps it’s because now I truly have the time. I can spend eight to ten hours a day writing, or should I say practicing.
One of the things we didn’t have, way back then, that we do have now, is the blessed internet. Being an ex geek, “one of my many frailties,” I searched high and low for new and intriguing ways to learn to write.
Like joining Online Writers Workshop in order to post what I’ve written and get feedback. Or like joining a new Writers Forum, Nick Daw’s Writers Circle, then agreeing to become a moderator as his site grew, and grew, and grew. That’s a story in itself. During all this time I’ve been writing a novel. Page after tedious page and day after tedious day has droned on. Finally, I’ve had to stop and regroup. I want to be published now, this year, 2006, impatient being that I am. I investigated writing articles but am too dumb for that.
Next I took a class on short story writing, thinking that I could whip out a short story a week and be published in no time. This is how one goes from dumb to dumber, but wait! I did something smart. I stumbled across a small forum that had a welcome sign out. It was run by an editor and consisted of twelve members, all women. Being a man, that gave me a REALLY BIG pause for thought, but then, why not?
There was one other little catch. The editor assigns topics each month for the members to write about. There is a time limit. Two weeks, then post for critiques from other members. Next, re-write, and then post once more. Added to this is a little surprise once in a while. We also have to write a poem about one of three topics that the forum administrator picks. This along with the short story assignment. Sounds like a bunch, huh? It is. Where does all this lead?
If you want to be a writer, write. WRITE, WRITE, WRITE. If you are anything like me, the dread snake of procrastination is wrapped around your waist like a writhing, scaly living belt. There is no procrastination in this forum. Nope, not allowed. You do the work, or soon you're no longer a member. Doing the work however, and getting valuable feedback for improvement, day after day, had distinct advantages.
I’ve found my writing has improved dramatically and my enjoyment of it has skyrocketed. To summarize, I’ll get my wish. I will be published sometime this year and when I do, you’ll all know about it, count on that. Finally a word about how much my writing has improved. It’s gone from being 100% garbage to 90% garbage. Once in a while, ever so often, I write something that pleases someone other than me. Then, all of a sudden, all the trash and all the word garbage that has sifted through my fingertips, is worth it. Til next time, Aelf.


P.S. For more information on this nifty little writers forum contact Linda at writingfriend@earthlink.net.
Another great site to check out is www.alongstoryshort.net. They list writing contests, have a free newslsetter and lots of other fun writerly stuff.

Welcome to the site

Hi Everybody, Wecome to the bloggery. In coming days I will be posting some writing tips, news and anything else that I come across in my travels.