The Art of Contest Writing

So, I type here, procrastinating from the short story that is going completely off-tangent and inducing headaches (or maybe it's the humidity here in godforsaken Lafayette, IN...). As I was staring at the aforementioned story, waiting for words to magically appear on my computer screen without my actually having to TYPE them, this little light bulb lit up over my head. It kind of freaked my boyfriend out. And by "kind of," I mean, not at all, because it didn't actually happen, and my boyfriend is so engrossed in his new MLB '09 game that he wouldn't notice if a homicidal maniac came through our front door right now and hacked my screaming body into itty bitty pieces.

Of what, pray tell, did this epiphany consist?

Contests.

In case that succinct reply was not definitive enough, I will go into a bit more detail.

As some know, I recently entered ktliterary's "prompt contest." (My entry is a bit further down this page.) Not surprisingly, I was not the winner of a coveted free book, but that's okay. I didn't really EXPECT to win. I just thought, "What the hell?"

One of the best feelings, to me, when writing is that rush I get when I've finished a piece of writing. It's like the world becomes a better place, and I will be set for life because I've finished a crappy first draft.

With contests which a person chooses to enter, comes a deadline, comes pushing oneself to finish a piece of writing, rather than lolly-gagging (I have no idea how to spell that word; corrections are welcome) and saying, "I've written five words...that's good for today...where's my beer?"

I'm exaggerating, of course - I don't drink beer.

To conclude this blog entry, I come to a resolution: enter more contests. More writing means, hopefully, that the writing will get better. I think I'm going to write a contest entry every two weeks.

Now, on to working on this difficult short story. I think...I think my characters HATE me. ;)