18 Mar 2012
Form and Genre Challenge #7
“The Tanka Challenge” For submission the week ending Sunday, 25th March. Challenge: Write a tanka poem. Form: Open Word Count: Open Submission Guidelines 1. Submissions open for a 24 hours period every Sunday starting 00:01GMT (UCT). 2. Submissions via the Mr Linky widget on the first post every Sunday. Any stories linked via the comments section will be considered ineligible. 3. All poems must be... read more
18 Mar 2012
Form and Genre Challenge #6 Submission
“The Comedy Challenge” Challenge: To write a comedy. Form: Open Word Count: 1500 words Judges: Paul Servini & Jodi Cleghorn Congratulations to our Comedy winners… Paul Anderson – winner of the Judges’ Choice Award for Adonai Construction Inc. Annie Evett & Carolyn Wagner – joint winners of the Readers’ Choice Award (sharing 66% of the vote) with Cat’s Meow and Life’s a... read more
17 Mar 2012
PROMPTed #7 To Be Sure
PROMPTed is a weekly collection of writing prompts to inspire your writing week. The prompts are loosely grouped under a common theme and include a random line prompt, a photograph, a song/music video, a sensory suggestion and a famous quote. This week’s prompts are from Jodi Cleghorn in honour of St Patrick’s Day. Next week we welcome Stacey Larner as our first guest programmer. Random Line... read more
16 Mar 2012
Looking Back
In the past week I have twice introduced myself to people in a positive way. Yes! As some of you will recall, I blogged earlier this month about my bad self-depreciation habits—bad because, if I don’t sound very confident in my work, how can I expect anyone else to be? But I think I might be turning a corner. One piece of advice I received after posting my blog was ‘know thyself’: This is a... read more
16 Mar 2012
From Production to Worrying… the Best and Worst of Jim.
How can I self-critique myself when I am indeed perfect, amazing, and only have to write a single draft because it’s just that darn good… Oh, sorry, I just woke up from a strange dream. Writing is all about the ending product. That’s what readers get. Much like buying, say, a table, a reader gets that finished product. Most readers will read the book and chuck it into a corner, a library, or a... read more
15 Mar 2012
Assembling the Manuscript
I’ve never sat down to write a book of poetry; I just write poems. When enough poems accumulated that I felt were of publishable quality, I started to think about putting together a book. The current manuscript has been through several cycles of: select poems; assemble manuscript; send out; receive rejection. Each time, I’ve altered and refined the selection of poems, changed the title, etc. At... read more
15 Mar 2012
The Tax Man Cometh
So you stand on the corner in your New English clothes and you look so polished from your hair down to your toes Ah but still your fingers gonna pick your nose After all… - Billy Joel, “Captain Jack” The tax man is here, he’s got his two-column ledger out and a large and imposing halberd in the corner for my head. It still has some viscera on the blade from his last interview.... read more
14 Mar 2012
You’re in New York
By Janelle Ward You’re in New York. You have an undying optimism for everything. You pick a café recommended by an author (a published writer of literary fiction). You walk in and discover that no one has a laptop. Odd. Guess it’s a less obvious kind of writer’s place. You order a coffee and an apple crumble with ice cream. The coffee comes, black and plain and American. The cup is white... read more
