An email arrived a week or so ago announcing the Rolla Arts Council Biannual Writing Contest. I left it sitting there thinking I had nothing to enter. I’ve done very little serious writing the past couple of years, mostly picture books.
This is the only contest I do enter. Perhaps I should enter more, but they take time both to find and enter them and to write something to enter. The email stares at me several times a week.
Rolla Arts Council Writing Contest
There are three categories to enter: fiction, nonfiction and poetry. Although I do write haikus, these are not really useful for this contest. That leaves the two writing categories.
Both can be excerpts of longer projects. That’s fine. However, 3000 words isn’t very long, often not even a chapter. And I’ve entered previous contests with two of my novels I am working on already.
Possible Fiction Entry?
There is the one I am presently editing. It’s the second of the Carduan Chronicles on Ship Eighteen. Perhaps I can enter part of it. I even know which chapter, although I would need an explanatory paragraph for it. After all, the judge won’t know about the Carduans or, in this case, the ship’s journey.
The first chapter of the book on Ship Nineteen took second place. It would be nice if this entry in the series also took a place.
Possible Nonfiction Entry?
I am working on picture books. These don’t normally work well without the illustrations and these are not part of the entry.
There is the Chemistry Project. Science activity books aren’t appropriate for the contest.
Perhaps I can start a different picture book, science based with more text than a traditional picture book. Topic? Perhaps a series of books ultimately about 100-inch hikes. The first one is about exploring my Ozark creek?
It is a place to start. With six projects already in progress, I really don’t need another one. But I do want a Rolla Arts Council Writing Contest entry. And I need reasons to take time off to go walking.