I have a little less than 41 days to turn a couple hundred thousand words worth of stories into a "manuscript" that is to be "less than 100,00 words" in length. 40 days and 40 nights is a pretty significant time frame; lots of Biblical references there. The grand prize for this contest is a guaranteed publishing contract with Pocket Books/Simon & Schuster; as well as a $5,000 dollar advance. It will be judged by members of a writing forum I belong to; that bothers me, because favorites will come into play I am sure. I'll just get to work, and let the cards be dealt. Time to lay them down and see if my pair of three's with a Queen high can win the pot.
Finalists will be picked based on the amount of "10 star" ratings. The lady that wrote about her arthritic poodle gets ten star ratings; but I had someone write a Haiku about my stories. Haikus are nice and all; I figure I have at least one ten star rating coming from that side of the table.
"I have tried every device I know to breathe life into my charcaters, for there is little in fiction more rewarding than to see real people on the page."
~James A. Michener
Wish me luck with allegory, allusion, metaphor and plain Southern English.
Contest info:
http://romancenovel.gather.com/
I swear I posted this already, but it looks like the forum ate it.