Start the Year off Write 2014 Writing Challenge

I'm proud to say I will be participating in Shannon Abercrombie's Start the Year Off Write 2014 writing challenge, which will run from January 5 through January 26, 2014. The idea is for those of us who have stories to revise, to spend 21 days in January working on, and revising, those stories and ideas. There will be a writing exercise to do each day. Hopefully, by the end of the challenge, some of our stories will be ready to find "new homes" in the publishing world.

Sounds like a great idea, doesn't it? Yes, it is! Even though you will be working by yourself in the comfort of your own home, you can share the experience with all the other writers who will be participating in the challenge.

How much does it cost? Nothing. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Nada. It's FREE!!!!

Who can join? Anyone can!!

Why should you join in? Well, in addition to the fact that you will be part of a community of writers who will be doing the same thing as you, and in addition to the hope that you will end up with some marketable manuscripts, ALL participants who follow the rules (and yes, there are some rules to follow) are eligible for PRIZES!!

What are the rules? Glad you asked. Here they are:

• You should Tweet, Facebook, blog or if you’re not tech-savvy, sing from the mountaintops that you are participating in the challenge. There is no registration required. You just have to follow!
• Display the "Start The Year Off Write" badge on your, which I have at the top of this blog.
• You MUST either join the Start the Year Off Write Facebook Group OR sign up to receive updates via email (in sidebar).
  
• You MUST comment on each exercise you complete in order to earn an entry towards the grand prizes. 
  
• If you complete EVERY exercise during the challenge, you will be eligible for the SUPER SECRET GRAND PRIZE.

Sound too good to be true? Trust me, it's true. I participated in Shannon's 100 Days of Summer Writing Challenge. Yep, that's right. She sponsored a writing challenge that lasted for 100 days. Participants were encouraged to follow daily writing prompts. Everyone who completed a prompt was eligible for weekly prizes. It was fun and it kept me writing during the summer.

Now I can hardly wait to Start the Year Off Write!

Are ya ready to join in??? I hope so....

Coming January 2014: START THE YEAR OFF WRITE

Image courtesy of ShannonAbercrombie.com

Those of you who have been keeping up with my blog know that I participated in a summer-long writing event called 100 DAYS OF SUMMER WRITING CHALLENGE. It was set up by Shannon Abercrombie. The idea was to keep writing through the busy days of summer with daily writing prompts that were sent via email. The prompts were varied and ran the gamut from silly to serious. All were original prompts created by Shannon based on her writing and life experiences throughout the summer.

Because there was such an overwhelmingly positive response to the challenge, Shannon is going to try it again next summer, but she is also working on something different called START THE YEAR OFF WRITE. This particular writing event will start in January 2014. She has not provided much information about the upcoming event yet; just enough to raise the curiosity levels of writers like myself. Because it sounds so intriguing, I wanted to pass the info on to you. Here's what she is sharing at the present time:

A new prompt writing challenge is in the works. It will be shorter, the prizes will be bigger and some extraordinarily generous and talented authors will be helping us all kick our writing into high gear.
I’ll provide more details in the coming weeks. For now, my writing friends, please mark your calendars and be ready to spread the word for the next challenge: START THE YEAR OFF WRITE, coming January 2014.
 
Visit her website so you can get on her mailing list, and mark your calendars for this exciting opportunity to get in on the writing fun in 2014!!!

Shannon Abercrombie's 100 Days of Summer - Writing Prompt Challenge

Shannon Abercrombie, a fellow writer issued a challenge to other writers to work on a series of given prompts for 100 days, one prompt per day. With each day's challenge, Shannon includes a tidbit of knowledge about some aspect of the writing process, i.e., time, setting, character development, etc.

I decided to sign up for the challenge. It sounded like fun. It sounded like a good thing. And it has been and it is.

A couple of days ago, she gave us a challenge just for fun. We were to write a sentence using a combinationof phrases from three different categories. We were supposed to choose the beginning of the sentence from Category 1, the middle from Category 2, and the end from Category 3. Here are the categories we had to choose from:

Category 1
On an ordinary day
On a dark and stormy night
One steamy afternoon in Grand Central Station
Category 2
two wild-eyed parakeets
a slimy slug and a caterpillar
curious twins
Category 3
jumped into a fireplace.
found a pickle jar of quarters.
uncovered a box of treasure. 

So, there are several different sentence possibilities. Here are 3 of them: On an ordinary day (Category 1) two wild-eyed parakeets (Category 2) jumped into a fireplace (Category 3). OR On a dark and stormy night (Category 1) a slimy slug and a caterpillar (Category 2) found a pickle jar of quarters (Category 3). OR One steamy afternoon in Grand Central Station (Category 1) curious twins (Category 2) uncovered a box of treasure (Category 3).

My sentence was: On a dark and stormy night a slimy slug and a caterpillar uncovered a box of treasure.

The whole idea for the exercise was to use our imagination to make a sentence and then hopefully keep going with it and write a story. Well, I didn't write a story, but I did write a first paragraph. Here's what I came up with:

On a dark and stormy night, a slimy slug and a caterpillar uncovered a box of treasure. This might seem a bit unusual, but it was just another day, or in this case night, for this pair of unlikely bounty hunters. Sometimes they went in search of snails or spiders who had crossed the line and broken the law. They got paid by bringing back wanted critters dead or alive. It was impossible to predict where their next adventure would take them. This time, it took them to a deserted beach in the middle of a storm. They were actually searching for a crustacean by the name of “Slippery Sam” who had managed to avoid the law in his long string of marine crimes. They found traces of the bandit, but couldn’t quite catch up to him. Instead, they climbed right over the box of treasure before they realized what it was.

Sounds like fun, doesn't it?!?

Now, here's where you come in. Help me continue this story, or at least tweak the first paragraph.

* What would you add?
* What would you change?
* What should happen next?

I'm leaving it up to you. Please share you thoughts and ideas in the "Comments" section.

Thanks!






If you're interested in joining in the fun, you can sign up on Shannon's website: Shannon Abercrombie: Unlocking Imagination One Page At a Time.