Opportunity Knocks on a Holiday Monday

Seana Moorhead & Lori Twining writing short stories at a Writescape Writing Retreat

Today is not a national statutory holiday in Canada, but in Ontario, Family Day is celebrated on the 3rd Monday of February (and many of us have a holiday away from our daily jobs). This holiday was originally created for people to spend time with their families, however, it also allows a day off between New Years Day and Good Friday (which are three months apart). These three months are a loooooong stretch of time when the sunshine goes on vacation to Florida (to hang out with my parents). When this happens, the Canadians end up battling snowstorms every other day and need to deal with the extremely cold winds whipping through the land freezing our facial expressions of sadness until mid-April.

Family Day is great for people who have young kids that want to celebrate by playing board games all day in their jammies by the fireplace, or going snowshoeing, skating or skiing together in the -35 degree weather. But, if you don’t have children, or if you are like me, your kids have grown up and have moved out, Family Day becomes more of a “Catch-up-on-all-the-other-stuff-you-have-procrastinated-doing” Day.

If you are a writer, it also becomes a “Finish-My-Novel” kind of day or a “Let’s-Write-A-Short-Story” kind of day. After reading Seana Moorhead’s blog post on 10 Reasons to Write Short Stories on January 27th, I thought I should investigate all the possibilities of where to send these newly-created short stories. Then, I decided to share the information with you. There is no better feeling of sending out your work and having it be a finalist (or a winner) in a contest.

Okay, that was a little lie above…

Read more

Emotion is the Superhero of Fiction Writing

“It’s just emotion that’s taken me over…” The BeeGees, from the song “Emotion

Emotion is, well, just about everything when it comes to fiction. Emotion is what engages readers the deepest. Emotion is what makes thereader laugh, cry, cheer, get pissed off, hate, judge. It makes them feel. It makes them forget they’ve fallen into the world of fiction.

Emotion is the one, main element of my writing that’s taken me to a new level the last few years. And it took me awhile to get there. To get how important it is in fiction and to get (or at least somewhat get) how to transfer, infuse, express emotion in my writing. Read more

Behind the Thoughts of a Contest Judge

Judge's Contest Sheets
Judge’s Contest Sheets

 

Truthfully, I’m a writer most of the time, sometimes I’m an editor and occasionally I judge writing contests.

I’ve judged numerous contests, but during the past few weeks of May, I’ve had the honour of helping judge both, a short story contest and a novel contest. I’ve discovered some important things that make a winning submission and also a few things that turn judges off immediately.

Here are a few things judges check for when judging a writing contest: Read more