Contest Alert :7th Annual Funds for Writers Contest - Best Advice

Perhaps it was Don't run with scissors?

7th Annual FundsforWriters Essay Contest, sponsored by IdeaWeaverSoftware.com

FundsforWriters and its annual sponsor IdeaWeaver, creator of writing and creativity software, announces the 7th Annual FundsforWriters Essay Contest. THEME: "The Best Advice I Ever Had." As is the FundsforWriters trademark, applicants enter with or without an entry fee, their choice. Prize monies range from $10 to $200. Limit 750 words. Deadline October 31, 2008. www.fundsforwriters.com/annualcontest.htm Direct any questions to Hope Clark at hope@fundsforwriters.com

This year's theme is The Best Advice I Ever Got, and you have some choices to make if you decide to write an essay for submission.

You can either write about the best advice you ever got and ignored or the best advice you ever got and ignored.

And you can choose to enter the contest with a $5 fee that includes a copy of the book, or without the $5...and no book.

Check out Funds for Writers for more information and submission guidelines.

Reading : Nancy Agabian at Beyond Baroque

Trust me, this will be an entertaining evening.

Nancy and I were briefly in the same writing group years ago, and I used to go see her performance art shows around Los Angeles. (She's in New York these days.) She's funny, smart, and she has something to say that will touch you and make you think.

While you wait, or if you can't make it, check out her website and her new book, Me as Her Again.

Where is Beyond Baroque? It's right here!

10 October, Friday - 7:30 PM
40th ANNIVERSARY SERIES
NANCY AGABIAN, with Guitar Boy

NANCY AGABIAN returns to BB from New York with a new book, Me as her again (Aunt Lute), an untangling of identity, desire, trauma, and multi-continent, multi-identity family history via Walpole Mass., Wellesley, Hollywood, New York, Turkey, and home. Agabian taught a workshop at BB for several years and published her first book with us,Princess Freak (to be reprinted in an expanded edition in 2009). Featuring a special reunion of Agabian and ANN PERICH in the folk-punk duo GUITAR BOY. Perich is a composer andvisual multi-media artist. They'll reprise old faves like "Don't Fall Off the Getty Center," "I Could Have Saved Kurt Cobain," and "I'm Not Gonna Be a Victim Anymore.” Perich and Agabian's 2000 CD was Freaks like me.

NaNoWriMo is Coming!

My NaNoWriMo 2006 Novel : Basura Canyon

Have you heard of National Novel Writing Month [NaNoWriMo]? It's this kind of amazing month long event during which you commit to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.

Sound crazy?

You may be right. It may be crazy. But it just may be the lunatic within yourself you're looking for. (Apologies to Billy Joel.)

I did NaNoWriMo in 2006. I wrote 57,000 words in 30 days. It was very empowering.

What'd it do for me? It gave me a half-baked first draft in a vein that's unusual for me. I've worked on revising it, off and on, since then.

My fantasies of writing and rewriting and selling a book a year due to NaNoWriMo were the really crazy part. Yeah, I'm one of those who's likely to build castles with the most flimsy of materials.

The best thing NaNoWriMo did for me was encourage me to put my writing first. Literally. It only took a few days to realize that my normal writing habits weren't going to garner the necessary average of something like 1,750 words a day.


That's when I started getting up earlier, driving to an all-night diner near where I work, and writing before going to my office.

Man, what a good choice that was. Two years later, I'm still an early-morning diner denizon. I do this thing for myself and my writing before I do anything for anyone else.

And some one brings me coffee! And they notice if I don't show up.

I'd encourage you to check it out and to make the one month commitment. See what good habits you can establish in a month. If you're a bit of a perfectionist, going for quantity over quality might actually help you break free of your internal editor.

Even though there's a great online community to tap into at www.nanowrimo.org , let me know how it's going.