I entered a writing contest today!

On October 31 I wrote this blog post, but because of my review of Jan Coates’ book, A Hare in the Elephant’s Trunk, followed by our interview and the book giveaway – I decided to wait until a winner was chosen. Now that the wait is over — and I’m anticipating the winner’s reply — here is that post.

Today I submitted a story into a writing contest. *gulp*

The requirements are that it – rhyme, be no more than 300 words, and – along with some other writing specifications – would appeal to a child. So I dug out my rhyming story that I had asked my critique group to give their opinions on a few months ago, and seriously tackled the comments and advice. Then I posted it for critique again, tweaked a few little things, and prepared it for submission. Oh my…

I chose to submit it online, and it’s a good thing I did because October 31 is the deadline, which is .. um .. today! How long it took me to hit ‘send’ I’m not sure. I sat here barely breathing. I checked to see if my heart was still beating. I checked my story over a few more times to be sure it was set up the way the judges requested, then I stopped breathing, started stressing, and .. hit the submit button. Yikes!

Omigosh! It’s gone now, so if I missed anything it’s too late now! The waiting has begun. Today will end and the judges will begin reading and judging every entry that meets their requirements. I wonder how many will they receive? I wonder how many will they toss out? I wonder how difficult will it be for them to choose five winners?

Winners, what a nice word — especially if I am one! Five .. winners. First place winner is awarded a nice cash prize and his/her story will be published in the writers’ newsletter that is read by editors and publishers. (yummy possibilities there.) Second place winner receives a smaller cash prize. Third, fourth and fifth place winners each get a smaller still case prize. All five will be given a certificate, as well.

Would I like to win? But of course! Does it matter which one? umm .. if not first then I guess it doesn’t matter as much which place, does it? But I’m not kidding myself about the possibilities. I know the competition is tough, there are incredible writers out there. My writing is probably quite simplistic in comparison but I still have a chance, actually five chances in this instance. So, I won’t give up hoping.

By mid-February the winners will be notified, in March they will be announced in the next issue. Yes, I will be disappointed if I don’t place, but if my story doesn’t win in this contest I have it ready to go out again.

For now, this experience has made good blogging material. 🙂

A PostScript to this story is that last week an email notification arrived thanking me for my entry. Of course, my heart did a flip-flop just to hear anything from them. How silly is that?

I’ll let you know what happens.

How do you handle the waiting? What do you do to keep from stressing over it?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

To blog or not to blog .. is that the question?

I have not been posting to my blog as regularly as I had hoped because of family obligations, but still I try to keep at it. This past week I was thinking about writing, in particular “blogging” —

There are hundreds – no, thousands! – of blogs out there to read, thousands of blog artists sharing their thoughts, ideas, talents, rants, advice, art forms, humour …

It’s a wonderful way to share, vent, contribute, advertise, hone skills, meet people, reinvent oneself. It’s also a sure way to reveal one’s lack of skill, talent, intelligence, tact, and common sense.

Blogging is an expanding sense of community, a way to connect with others while building one’s platform – one’s identity and presence in this world, or at the very least – on the Internet.

A quote I found which also follows along nicely with my last post about laughter is by William Saroyan, a writer known for his stories celebrating the joy of living in spite of poverty. He said, “The most solid advice for a writer is this, I think: Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”

For some, a driving force in life is writing, for others it is the reading of wonderful stories that stimulates their lives.

So, my questions to you are as follows:

Do you agree with William Saroyan’s advice? Or do you have another quote or word of advice to share with me?

If you have a blog, why or why not?

Why do you read other people’s blogs, what do you look for?

How has the blogging world impacted your life, or has it made much of a difference at all?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Do you blog or are you a frequent blog visitor instead?

I’m excited! I have been watching my Blog Stats steadily climb, and sometime this morning it reached the amazing total of 3000. In fact, at the time of this writing it is at 3003! That means that there have been 3003 visits to my blog! Not 3003 visitors, because most are repeat visits by some people who come back again and again – which I love to see. And not all visits mean a comment has been left, nowhere near that many on my blog – not even counting the spam that has been caught and blocked – but when I get to 1000 valid comments I will have to celebrate somehow.

Now I know that for many bloggers that number (3000) is a drop in the bucket, but for me? That’s a lot of visiting, don’t you think? And I have YOU, dear reader, to thank for that. 🙂

SO, my questions to you today are:

Do you like to keep a blog of your own, and does it matter to you if you get many comments?
Or are you a frequent visitor to blogs, not interested in maintaining your own but loving to read what others have to share and then leaving your comments? (If yes, do you have favourites that you follow or do you keep searching out new blogs?)
Or, do you prefer to just visit and not say anything … until you leave me a comment today in answer to that last question? 😉

I LOVE to hear from you! When I started blogging it was with a certain amount of trepidation but now I don’t think I could NOT blog, I’d miss it and you too much. So, leave me a comment? 🙂

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

A writing contest – ending soon

Do you like to enter contests? Do you write for children or do you know someone who does?

I recently found the blog of Christy Wright Wild which you writers may wish to visit at http://christiewrightwild.blogspot.com

This month (which is almost over, so hurry!) she is putting on a contest with more chances to win than her usual offer. If you write for children, this may be of interest to you. Check it out and follow her directions at http://christiewrightwild.blogspot.com/p/contests.html

I’m giving it a try. And if you enter and win then please let me know. I’d love to hear about it.

Do you like to share your written work before it’s accepted by a publisher? Do you enjoy taking a chance at winning contests by entering your work?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Month of Poetry (MoP)

Do you like poetry? I often prefer to write it more than read it, which seems strange, I’m sure. But then I find poetry sometimes that is a great read and all is well. 🙂

During PiBoIdMo in November, I learned of MoP — Month of Poetry. I said then that I would consider attempting the challenge which was scheduled for January. When this month arrived, if you have been keeping up with my posts, you know – I was involved with family things and being so busy that I forgot about #MoP until a few days in. Since it was still okay to sign up I joined seven days into it. Then for day two, here is my offering:

A poem a day
What was I thinking!
Rhyme, rhythm, cadence
My eyes are blinking.

My verse is too tight
There’s much I don’t know
For thirty-one days
My words have to flow
Poetically

Well … so I’m not a great poet, but that’s not the point, anyway. (fortunately for me) The inadequacies were creeping in, but once I got over myself they disappeared. The main thing is to have fun trying, writing and reading poetry, and we are learning some new styles and forms as we go along. Plus Kat (the originator and host of this challenge) has a few guest bloggers to encourage and educate us. It’s all good and I am enjoying it, and the fact that this challenge is set in Australia.

So, if you are interested in accepting the challenge to write a poem a day this month follow this link before opportunity to sign up ends. http://monthofpoetry.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/whos-in-month-of-poetry-2011/

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

NaNoWriMo 2010 is over — I WON!

Yes, NaNoWriMo is over for another year. If you have not been following my posts — this is the first NaNo challenge for me and I WON! That means that I met the challenge of writing 50,000 words in 30 days – with a few words over just to be sure – and I now have the certificate to prove it. Yay!

My ‘novel’ is not completed, though. I stopped writing in a place where there are three conflicts set up to be resolved, but I think it was a good place to stop for this challenge. Now I have the personal challenge of completing my ‘novel’ and doing a LOT of editing.

Writing my last post I was SO TIRED, and I had to laugh today when I read it over and saw the typos I made last night. And I don’t know why I didn’t say in that post’s heading that I had won in NaNo. Too tired to think it through, I guess. 🙂

Last night I also signed the pledge to verify that I had completed PiBoIdMo, and now we wait to learn who, of all of its participants, win those great prizes that Tara Lazar gathered to give out on December 3 or 4.

Talking to my husband over supper tonight I realized that I really did accomplish quite a bit of writing last month (November) — 50K words for NaNoWriMo, 30 picture book ideas for PiBoIdMo (I actually got 44), and I completed and mailed out the Autumn issue of Valley Sunshine newsletter.

No wonder I’m tired. I am ending this day early. Hopefully tomorrow I can get more accomplished in my house than I did today.

And it’s now December! Time to get my house in order to start decorating for Christmas!

So, how was your day? Have you started Christmas shopping and decorating?

Thanks for reading, and … Creative Musings! 🙂

Day 30: NaNoWriMo & PiBoIdMo

Tuesday, Day 30 of NaNoWriMo — I’m SO TIRED! Last night I stayed up and wrote until 4 AM. As I posted yesterday I did what I said I would do … wrote until I couldn’t stay awake to write another word. That is just what happened. (I’m glad I did this because I had several interruptions today that would added stress to completing.) So at around 4:30 AM I had just relaxed beside my husband and his alarm went off. I went to sleep and slept until my alarm went off around 8:30, then I was up and wrote until I finished NaNo. So I WON! It’s a feeling of accomplishment and relief that I actually completed it and got my ‘novel’ validated on time on the site. I did use the program that generates paragraphs and words. When I finished the challenge and posted my word total, then I generated the number of words I had recorded – which was 50265 – and submitted that to make it official. (I’m actually having trouble staying awake right now to write this post.) I have the NaNoWriMo challenge 101% completed!

Even though I completed the 50K challenge, my story is not completed. I left a major conflict unresolved and hope to continue writing to finish the story.

PiBoIdMo ended today, too. I completed with 44 ideas. It was a wonderful experience for me.

Have you pushed yourself beyond what you thought you could do?

Thanks for readings, and … Creative Musings! 🙂