2 posts tagged “writing contest”

So today I mailed off my three entries to that writing contest.  It's the same one I entered last year and got to "finalist" status.

I'm not totally sure this year's offerings are actually any better, although overall I think I have made progress in my writing over the past year. 

Well, we'll see.

Two of my entries wanted to be longer stories and I cut them forcibly to get to the 3500-word limit.  So if I cut too much, then they won't make sense.  And I didn't have time to get the cut versions thoroughly critted by my crit buddies.  So, hm, I don't know. 

The other was a piece of flash fiction of only 700 words.  I'm never sure if my flash-fic is densely-packed enough.  Sometimes it strikes me as just too glib or simplistic.  So I dunno. 

Welp, just have to wait and see.

Had an interview today, which was encouraging. 

Jeez, friends are great. 

Also, trying to get a piece whipped into shape for this year's version of that contest I entered last year & managed to final in.  I had a piece that I thought fit well with this year's theme, but when I brushed up the draft it turned out to be 7800 words in length.  Whereas the contest has a word-count limit of 3500 words. 

Crikey. 

Can I really cut this concept down by more than half, and still say what I meant to say? 

Well, I'm giving it a shot. 

That's the beauty of computers, y'know; I still have the previous version on file, if I don't like the results after the cuts. 

For last year's theme, I came up with 3 all-new concepts and liked them all, managed to write up 2 of them within the word-count limit, and the other one grew so far beyond it that I knew it wasn't meant to be.  But this year no new pieces on the theme are popping into my head, so I feel like, if I'm going to hit it at all, I need to cut this one piece down 'cause I've got nothing else right now. 

Heh, well, getting back to it.

Cheers.