War Child - 6 days left

There's only one thing I like better than a deadline, and that's an extended deadline. Its like you're getting a second chance, its fate saying, go on you can do it. So, with six days to the new deadline of 9th March to go I have submitted a piece to the War Child 'You're Not the Only One' project.

The big list of submitters on the website lists many of my fellow bloggers but if any of you out there haven't done it yet - go on give it a go, that extended deadline is meant for YOU . It's for a really good cause and I think the book itself will be excellent.

And you get to stick this nice bright button on your blog:

Whoosh - there goes a deadline

"I love deadlines.
I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by."

-Douglas Adams

Damn it I missed the deadline for the Fish Criminally Short Short Histories Comp. I'd written and carefully edited two pieces, both under 250 words, that I was really chuffed with - then forgot to submit them! I need a better system (current system being a piece of paper on the wall with lists of comps - but I can't rememebr if I tick them off when I've written them or when I've submitted them.)

So now I'm on the look out for a comp requiring a crime story less than 300 words - any suggestions anyone?

Its Thursday tomorrow which is WEA Creative Writing class day. I really look forward to it every week. We have a truly inspirational tutor who is full if excellent ideas and tips and the class is so varied in terms of age, background and motivations for writing that it's a short story/ radio play/ sitcom in itself (though I might have to leave town if I ever got round to writing it.) Ooops that reminds me I haven't done this week's assignment yet - a restaurant review that avoids cliche and adjectives and uses strong verbs and nouns instead. I'll make notes while watching my tape of Monday's Nigella later (mad as mad but I love her food)

Went to a short story comp prize-giving thing last week. My story wasn't placed but my friend Ann came third so I went along to cheer her on and also to listen to the judge Martin Bedford talking about short story writing and what he looks for when judging competitions. In the break when he came over for a chat I did something a bit rash (blame it on the pear cider I drank before I got there): I asked him for some feedback on my story . Fortunately he remembered it and said it nearly made his shortlist; he loved the dialogue (hurrah! - the whole thing is basically a dialogue between two women) and the situation BUT he felt it was a longer piece that had been squashed down. I was so pleased! Obviously he wasn't going to stand there and say it was complete rubbish and watch me crumple, but the reason he gave made a lot of sense as the night before the submission deadline my story was 5,300 words long and by four o'clock the next afternoon it was the requisite 3,000. I have since restored it to its 5,000 word glory and submitted it elsewhere.

OK Wea assignment time and after that a bit more of my children's story for the Times comp - its going well but I have two concurrent ideas and I'm finding it hard to keep focussed on the main one - I certainly don't have time to write two children's books by mid-November, so one of them will have to wait

A beginning

So, OK a new blog started (one of 40,000 today apparently). Why? Well I started a diary (the paper and pen kind) at the beginning of this year. I carry it everywhere and have found that just having it makes me write. Sometimes it's just unsharable nonsense but other times odd sentences or word pairings lead me on to characters and story ideas. So, I thought as I spend so much time sitting at my computer I might as well have an online equivalent, an electronic sibling to my paper and pen. Another place to sit and natter to myself and to anyone who wants to listen, to play with words, to try to find the right ones.

In an undusted corner of my room a teetering stack of cardboard and paper sandwiches together years and years of my writing in a giant Scooby snack. Ideas for characters, for plots, for conflict and adventure. Lots and lots of beginnings but too few middles or ends. I began to think as the pile grew higher that I would never write a complete story, not even a very, very short one.

Then I discovered the joy of writing competitions and more importantly - Deadlines! I've known for years that the only way I ever get anything finished is if I have a deadline to meet but I never thought to apply it to my writing. Self-appointed deadlines aren't worth the paper they're not written on - but every competition comes with its own delectable deadline just begging to be met.

Sad, but true, that was all I needed to get me writing in earnest. It's not the winning (fab though that is when it happens), it's the completing, the finishing, the knowing that I have told a story. So, in the hope of inspiring others, and also as reminders to myself, I will post a list of current writing competitions - and of course their deadlines. Let me know if I've missed out any good ones.