Deadline November 3rd:

You have a little while to get ready for this, but it doesn’t hurt to start thinking and writing early – it’ll give you time to edit too.  Check their website out for more info: http://www.writersunion.ca/cn_shortprose.asp

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$2,500 Prize; Winner and finalists will have their stories submitted to three Canadian magazine publishers for consideration.Entry Fee: $25 per entry, cheque or money order made payable to The Writers’ Union of Canada. Deadline: November 3 Eligible Writers – Canadian citizens or landed immigrants – All writers who have not been published in book format, in any genre and who do not have a contract with a book publisher Eligible Entries – Nonfiction and fiction prose; up to 2,500 words, English language – Not previously published in any format – Multiple submissions are welcome How to Submit Entries – Typed, double-spaced, on numbered pages, plain 8.5” x 11” paper, not stapled – Submissions will be accepted by hardcopy only – A separate cover letter with full name, address, phone number, e-mail address, number of pages of entry, and whether submission is fiction or non-fiction. Please type name of entrant and title of entry on each numbered page. Manuscripts will not be returned. Latest Winner 2009 Award Winner Previous Winners 2008 Award Winner 2007 Award Winner 2006 Award Winner 2005 Award Winner 2004 Award Winner Deadline – Postmarked: November 3 Results – Results will be posted at www.writersunion.ca. Send entries to: SPC Competition, The Writers’ Union of Canada, 90 Richmond St. E, Suite 200, Toronto, ON, M5C 1P1 top

Below is the first of Janet Fitch’s 10 Writing Tips That Can Help Almost Anyone: it’s from her website http://janetfitchwrites.wordpress.com/ and I encourage you to go and look at it.  Right now!  

1. Write the sentence, not just the story
Long ago I got a rejection from the editor of the Santa Monica Review, Jim Krusoe. It said: “Good enough story, but what’s unique about your sentences?” That was the best advice I ever got. Learn to look at your sentences, play with them, make sure there’s music, lots of edges and corners to the sounds. Read your work aloud. Read poetry aloud and try to heighten in every way your sensitivity to the sound and rhythm and shape of sentences. The music of words. I like Dylan Thomas best for this–the Ballad of the Long-Legged Bait. I also like Sexton, Eliot, and Brodsky for the poets and Durrell and Les Plesko for prose. A terrific exercise is to take a paragraph of someone’s writing who has a really strong style, and using their structure, substitute your own words for theirs, and see how they achieved their effects.

Burning to get your book on the page? I thought I’d direct some of you superfast writers to this fun contest.  This is taken from their website:

The World’s Most Notorious Literary Marathon