Due to not checking the I Heart Presents blog for some months, I hadn't realised there was another writing competition, this time for "Modern Heat", till the evening of Saturday 13th, when I checked in at the blog, and discovered that the competition deadline for submission was Monday 15th.
I submitted something - a chapter of a book I had started a while ago. I guess not having time to ponder about whether I should enter or not gave me the impetus to just do it. On the other hand, not having time to polish was hell. I spent most of Sunday writing a synopsis, and poring over my chapter, wondering if it was any good.
The more I looked at it, the lamer it seemed. And then there was all the palavar of the formatting - double spaced, Times New Roman 14 point, indents to new paragraphs rather than spaces. Numbering pages on the top right corner. Putting name of story plus pseudonym on the bottom.
Putting my real name on the email and then pressing send. Only to realise that I'd made some typos in the email (though not thankfully on the manuscript). Aaah! This is what you get when you do things close to midnight after winding yourself up all day.
Still, having slept and woken again, I feel relieved. At least I've submitted something, which is more than can be said for last time, when I chickened out.
Writing the synopsis was instructive. I'm not much of a plotter, as you will have gathered from previous posts, but writing the synopsis did force me to outline some ideas I had in my head for the novel, gave me a few new ones and in truth gave some shape and clarity to the direction of the novel. So I learnt something in the process.
The results of the competition are out on 1st October, but I'm not holding my breath!
No comments:
Post a Comment