Contest | Cathy C. Hall Writes

Oh. My. 78 words. Can you write short fiction? ‘Cause this contest is AMAZING.

The Aspen Writers’ Foundation and Esquire Magazine want your short fiction. Not just any short fiction. Your 78 words of short fiction. Yes, it must be 78 words. 78 really amazing words.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. Writing 78 brilliant words is tough. Really tough. But if you can pull it off, you can win something big. Really big. TEN writers will be flown to New York for a fiction workshop taught by Colum McCann. And the grand prize winner will win a full scholarship to the advanced fiction workshop at the Aspen Summer Words in 2012.

78 words. No entry fee. No fancy formatting. Just 78 winning words. (By October 7th)

So I zipped over to Cynsations (Cynthia Leitich Smith’s blog) this morning to read this lovely guest post from Deborah Halverson on Why Perfectly Nice People Make Perfect Bad Guys. It’s well worth the read, whether you write flash, short stories or novels, because characters can make all the difference in whether you end up with a good story or a bad story.

And as is so often the case, I found all sorts of other interesting writerly things to check out. Like the giveaway at Cynsations for Deborah Halverson’s Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies (just read to the end of Deborah’s guest post!).

And then, of course, I had to zip over to Deborah’s site called Dear Editor.com where she’s having a virtual book launch for Writing Young Adult Fiction for Dummies. And she’s giving away a a first chapter manuscript critique for a couple days. (It must be a middle grade or young adult first chapter.)

And then, I nosed around the site to read a few of the Dear Editor questions and answers. Again, you don’t have to write for the kidders and teens to appreciate Deborah’s advice.

Honestly, it’s not even lunch and I’m feeling scads more writerly brilliant than I did at breakfast. Though I have no idea why I would say “scads.”