CONTEST!

Amazing writer and all round fantastic friend of mine WENDY is hosting a great contest on her blog. 

I have posted it here so you can go check it out and join in the fun.

click her to go direct to her blog

http://onwordsandupwards.blogspot.com

FROM WENDY'S BLOG:

It's the day we've all been waiting for, at least, I have! Competition day! 

Now, I've never done this before, so bear with me.

First, the prizes! Starting with,First Prize! 

• 1 Gypsy Bronze puffed heart pendant
• 1 paperback copy of Melissa Marr's latest book, "Radiant Shadows."
• I bag of yummy Pineapple Lumps. 

This is a truly awesome, Gypsy Bronze heart pendant. It's substantial and feels weighty in your hand. It's also a hollow, puffed heart, which the photo doesn't show very well. It comes on a satin ribbon, measures approx 3cm (erm - an inch and a bit) at it's widest point. 

About Gypsy Bronze:

Gypsy Bronze is a fantastic alternative to real gold, it is solid, so therefore will not chip off like cheap gold plated jewelry. If it gets a bit dull, just give it a good polish with silver cleaning cloth and it will be as good as new!

This prize is very dear to my heart (pun sort of intended), because it contains elements of my newly complete book, Encore. The grains have a lot to do with one of my main characters (I'll share it with the winner, but as you know, I'm kinda superstitious about these things), my story is a love story (the heart) and the Gypsy part is kind of important too. 

Second Prize!

• 1 Gypsy Bronze heart pendant (as above).
• A copy of Lemony Snicket's book, Horseradish. It's not a story, it's a collection of quotes from Lemony Snicket's books, and it's hilarious. 
• Also, a packet of Pascal Pineapple Lumps! 

Third Prize!

• A paperback copy of Carrie Ryan's "The Forest of Hands and Teeth." This is an unread copy, but it did get lost for a couple of months and so is not in absolutely new looking condition. It has the UK cover, not the more familiar US cover, same wonderful story inside! 
• Also, you guessed it, a packet of Pineapple Lumps!

Fourth Prize!

• One packet of Pascal Pineapple Lumps and one Nestle Milo Bar! Double the yummy!

Pheeeeeeeew. 

So, now, what do you have to do to enter? 

1. Be a follower of this blog  + 1 Entry.
2. If you're already a follower before this contest +1 extra Entry.
3. Follow me on Twitter + 1 Entry. 
4. Mention this contest on your blog, Twitter, facebook, myspace, etc +1 Entry for the first mention in each site (you won't get a hundred entries for posting a hundred times in the one place, although I will really like you if you do, and really, what price friendship, people?). These must be accounts where people are actually going to see it, with actual friends/followers etc.
5. Have a friend follow me on either Twitter or this blog, get them to mention your name in the comments of this post or in a tweet, +1 entry for you from each new follower (I will keep track of these and add them to the totals you give me in the comments).
6. Post in the comments and tell me what your total number of entries is. (excluding from referrals, I will calculate those myself).
7. You must post in the comments here (on Wendy's blog) with your total, or I won't know. 

Click here to find me on Twitter. 

Wendy will pick a winner using a random number generator next Monday 10pm (NZ Time - that's Monday, 6am US EST -- I have researched!).

The contest is open to anyone anywhere. While She'll have difficulty posting to Saturn, Wendy will do her best. 

There you go, her first contest... have at it!

Cool hey.

SO GET GOING! Go follow her blog :) Go enter the comp. :)

Tis the season for rejections!

The problem:

"To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing be nothing." Elbert Hubbard.

In short, leave your shoes standing in the shadow of what you could be if only you have the courage to show up. This post is for those of you who know who have a bunch of poems, short stories or even a full manuscript ready for submission, but have been crippled by fear of the big R.

REJECTION.

I read some where that you should keep the fleshy Self that breathes your heart into the words on your pages very separate for the Self that submits your work for publication. And I think this is excellent advise. I don't have skin like a rhinos butt. I know the sayings. Thick skin and water off a ducks back. But the truth is that rejection sucks. It hurts. It cries. It burns. ... And as far as I know, if you live a life, it will happen to you. AND...you will live through it. So maybe it's a matter of perspective? Maybe we just need to change up the rules of the Rejection Game and instead of cringing, celebrate the knock backs.

A Solution Perhaps:

Tis the season for rejections! Yep. You read that right. This month Wendy (from On Words and Upwards) and I are celebrating getting our work out there. The first to ten rejections for the month of December wins. Wendy's blog says there is no prize, but I am going to put one up. Being that is tis the season of giving and all.

Prize:

I am going to send an Australian Children's Christmas picture book to the winner, or in the event that you don't have kids, a novel by an Australian author of my choice.

Rules:

1. Open to residents of ANY country.

2. No sending out queries/submissions for the sole purpose of getting rejected. That's a no-fair. These should be serious submissions. The whole point is to get your stuff out there.

3. It can be for anything writing related, competitions, online competitions, novel queries, short stories, poetry submissions... anything writerly. For competitions, I guess if you don't place in the competition, then it can qualify as a rejection. You can also count submissions for which you don't hear back by the end of Dec as a rejection.

4.If you happen to get a couple of partial requests (which

Wendy has, just sayin' cos it's exciting) or get accepted for something, that doesn't matter because it's the rejections we're counting here! You are still in the game.

5. Take the blog badge below and post it on your blog if you are playing with a link to this post or Wendy's post.

6. Thou shall be a follower of this blog and Wendy's blog to be eligible for the prize :)

7. When you get to ten post about your experience on your blog and then let me or Wendy know in the comment section of our blog or email tab@zaeya.com

8. Honor system is at work here :) We can't check out your submissions so no cheating. That would make Wendy and I cry. You don't want to make us cry right?

Blog Badge:

So, come on people. This is easy! Have fun. Think how many places you could send work to. And you can send the same piece to more then one place.

Genre Wars

Got some shorts that need to be shown to the world? Then head over to Literary Lab and enter their short story contest. The deadline for the Genre Wars is December 1st. I have copied the contest guidelines from Lady Glamis' Blog (hope she doesn't mind :)

So what are you waiting for?

Contest Guidelines
1. E-mail your 1 to 2,000-word short story to LiteraryLab@gmail.com before December 1, 2009 at 11:59 p.m. PST. Paste the work in the body of the e-mail with breaks between paragraphs (hit return twice). We will be reading all submissions blind, thanks to a kind volunteer who will send us the entries with all names removed. No attachments will be opened.

2. In your e-mail subject line type GENRE WARS ENTRY. In the body of the email include your name, the title of your work, word count, and which genre category you'd like to compete in: 1. science fiction/fantasy, 2. horror/crime, 3. literary, 4. romance, 5. children's literature/middle grade/young adult, or 6. experimental--yes, you have to pick one.

3. Works must be previously unpublished, and we ask for the rights to post the winning stories online and/or in print in the anthology. Afterwards, you are free to include the story in your own collections or as a reprint in another anthology.

For link to the original post click here.

What else have you found to enter? Please share links.

Rejection comp.

I have an on going competition with my blogging mate Wendy from Onwords and Upwards to see which one of us will be first to ten rejections by the end of December. We are celebrating getting our work out there.

Care to join us? So far Wendy is winning, but I intend to stage a come back and whoop her ass :)

A Novel in Three Days?

Can it be done?

I wrote my memoir in nine months and really, all that's in place is the scaffolding. Most writers take at least a year, if not much longer, to produce a work worthy of publication. But 3 days? What do you think? Could you write a novel in three days? Would you even bother trying?

These are the questions I have asked myself lately, because registration for the 32nd annual 3-Day Novel competition are about to close. And I am seriously thinking of entering. Just for the sheer hell of it. I mean, could I really complete a work of fiction in three days? Could I write my brains out for 72 hours straight? Am I just mad enough to find out? I think the answer might be yes.

Here's what it's about.

(The info below is taken straight from the 3-Day Novel website)

Can you produce a masterwork of fiction in three short days? The 3-Day Novel Contest is your chance to find out. For more than 30 years, hundreds of writers have stepped up to the challenge every Labour Day weekend, fuelled by nothing but adrenaline and the desire for spontaneous literary nirvana. It’s a thrill, a grind, a 72-hour kick in the pants and an awesome creative experience. How many crazed plotlines, coffee-stained pages, pangs of doubt and moments of genius will next year’s contest bring forth? And what will you think up under pressure?

How It Works: The contest takes place every Labour Day weekend (usually the first weekend in September), as it has since 1977. You can read the rules for complete details, but here’s the basics:

Entrants pre-register by mail by the Friday before the contest. You are allowed to prepare a brief outline ahead of time. (There are no set rules on this, but the briefer your outline, the better the creative experience.) The contest runs on the honour system—this has always worked well because the contest is first and foremost a writing experiment and so, as the saying goes, cheating only harms the cheater. (Plus we can tell if you cheat.)

Entrants write in whatever setting they wish, in whatever genre they wish, anywhere in the world. You may start writing as of midnight on Friday night, and must stop by midnight on Monday night. Then you print up your entry and mail it in to the contest for judging. (Submitting your manuscript is not required, and many entrants do not, preferring to use the contest as a personal creative tool. We recommend you do, though. We like to see what everyone came up with, and it makes it a more complete experience for you. Plus you never know… even if you don’t like what you produced, the judges might.)

You Get Published: Our panel of judges from the writing and publishing community reads and rereads the submissions and picks the winners. We announce the judging results the following January, hand out some prizes, and send a fancy certificate to everyone who delivered a novel. Then we publish the winner!

True Rewards: The prizes are a good incentive, but the contest’s true rewards go to everyone who gives it their all: the 72-hour exile of writers block, bragging rights afterward, an amazing mental kick-start, and a shiny new first draft your novel.

The next contest will take place September 5-7, 2009. If you have questions or want to join our mailing list, send an email to info@3daynovel.com. Check it out over at www.3daynovel.com/guide/ for more info.

So what do you think? Am I completely mad, or does this sound like a great excuse to lock myself away for the entire long weekend and write, write and write some more?

What about you? What's the craziest writing competition you have ever entered? Or if you don't write, what's the craziest 'whatever-it-was' competition you have entered? Come on, I can't be the only Wild Thing out there! My husband is the local ice-cream eating champion! He's still (sadly) proud of that fact ;)