Ready, Set...GO! 3-Day Novel Contest, Here I Come!

Only two weeks left before the International 3-day Novel Writing Contest compels contestants to write a novel in THREE DAYS! The contest begins at midnight on Saturday, September 3rd, and ends at 11:59pm on Monday, September 5th. The contest is an annual event and has been running thirty-four years strong based on an honour system which allows contestants to write from anywhere in the world with the single rule that they write within the given time frame. No Big Brother looking over our shoulders. Just the assumption that we're honest folk up for the challenge.

The entrants come from all walks of life and represent a host of nationalities. Some are amateur writers hoping to create their own Harry Potter fantasy in a hundred pages, while others are emerging and established masters of the written word aiming to write a manuscript to tweak for a year or two. Winning the contest wouldn't be so bad either.

I'm participating for the second time in a row. Last year, I got my feet wet and learned just how much stamina it took to write a novel in such a short amount of time. I only got to a sad fifty pages and the story needed quite a bit of editing and a whole lot more STORY! This year, my aim is to reach that one hundred page goal. One hundred pages is the average number of pages that can be madly written within three days. Contestants are allowed to write an outline before the literary shindig begins, so I've been doing a lot of brainstorming, but no masterpiece has come up in my empty head just yet. The key would be to write about something I already know with a simple plot and a small number of characters. Any suggestions? Other, more ambitious writers might write stories with all kinds of plot twists and an endless battery of names and places that keep the reader running through the pages to catch up with all the thrills and excitement. Three-day participants can communicate amongst other over-caffeinated brothers and sisters in the struggle in a forum specially set up on the 3DN website during the event. But be careful...mustn't spend all your time comparing notes and page numbers. There's a story to be written!

What's great about the contest is that every contestant's entry will be read by the judges. First place prize is publication. I have a copy of last year's winning book: TERRORYAKI by Jennifer K. Chung. I can understand why her book's a winner: good writing, strong characters, and a good dynamic plot that keeps us turning the pages. The ingredients of the story include a few tablespoons of the paranormal, some teaspoons of Taiwanese culture and tradition, a generous amount of food lingo and comedy, and a pinch of romance. I also have the novel written by Mark Sedore, the 2009 winner. SNOWMEN is a daring adventure tale of one man's death-defying journey on foot across the Arctic as his bed-ridden brother tries to sabotage his goal. Sedore really captures the landscape and climate of the Arctic in his descriptive prose. I found out that he had spent some time up north and in Iceland to get a sense of what it would be like to live in the frigid cold. He did his research in advance and was rewarded for it.

Hmm...so what kind of story should I write? A fantasy rom-com? A space-age thriller? A racy whodunnit? A Jane Austen-like classic? A nihilistic horror? A fictionalized memoir? Of course, I should write a story I would enjoy writing because it would totally suck if I spent all but one of the three days writing and discarding every beginning and never getting to the meat and potatoes of the process. Outline! Outline! That's the beauty of the contest. It helps you get started on something, and writers wanna be startin' somethin', right? Well, I'm up for the challenge! How about you? Registration is open til September 2nd. Check out the link below for more information.

I know I ain't no Margaret Atwood, or Toni Morrison, or J. K. Rowling, or Salman Rushdie, but I do know I'm a contestant in the 34th Annual International 3-Day Novel Contest, and that's a start. A HUNDRED PAGES IN THREE DAYS OR BUST! Here I go...again.

http://www.3daynovel.com/

Blank Page

There's a blank page in front of me.
How to transform that blank page?
I await wit and great insight.

Seconds speed by.
Minutes don't stop to ask why.
And after the hour has run its record-breaking marathon...

There's a blank page in front of me.
Through the maze of word searches
My cerebellum forsakes Zeus.

Seconds speed by.
Minutes don't stop to ask why.
And after the hour has run its record-breaking marathon...

There's a blank page in front of me.
Sad songs are the elixir
To unleash truth and glory in rhyme.

But alas! Seconds race by.
Minutes never stop to ask why.
And after the hour hurdled its share of Himalayas...

There's a blank page in front of me!
Visualizing genius!
Deepak Chopra just lost his job!

Sigh...

Seconds snooze.
Minutes pass gas.
And the hour? The hour sprinted all the way to Olympia several days ago.