Other Writing Contests

At the Saturday write-in, there was a request for me to post a list of some of the other writing contests that I know of.

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NaNoWriYe (National Novel Writing Year), known as WriYe
http://nanowriye07.suddenlaunch3.com/index.cgi

This is the year-long contest. They had us organized into “clubs”, depending on how many words we were aiming to write in the year. ChrisK0 and I were both in the “400-600K Club”. There was a club for people 50-100K, 100-200K, etc., all the way up to the one for the wackos attempting to write more than a million words in the year.

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JanNoWriMo (January Novel Writing Month), known as JanNo
http://www.ymakadomain.com/janno/

In the January contest, you can set your own word-count goal, and most of us were working to finish our NaNo novels. This is a smaller site (only 200 members this past January), and I really enjoyed it. We had running challenges to keep us on track with our word counts, had some really good conversations about writing, and also did some critiquing of one another’s work. The site had a problem in the summer time, and so there’s nothing there now but the home page, but Tia (the administrator) assures us that it’ll be back up in early December.

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Write Here, Right Now (February).

I don’t have a link for this one, but it was sponsored by a Scottish newspaper. The goal was to write 1K per day, and the newspaper sent out daily inspirational e-mails to the people who registered. There were no on-line forums for it, so Tia created a sub-forum for it on the JanNo site. I expect that if you check the JanNo site in mid-January, you’ll find people talking about it.

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NaNoEdMo (National Novel Editing Month), known as EdMo
http://www.nanoedmo.net/xoops/

This is the March contest, and the goal is to spend 50 hours editing your novel. They organized us into regions that corresponded to the NaNo regions, but there were so few Canadians doing it that we all ended up in the Alberta region, which was modded by Karalianne, the NaNo ML for Calgary.

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April Fools, known as, well, April Fools
http://aprilfoolsnovels.com/forum/index.php

This is one of the most fun contests, in my opinion. The smilies are active: they bounce, they rant, they dodge, they zip off the page. You set your own writing goal, and all forms of writing (fiction, poetry, school-work, etc.) can be counted. Very good for the students! When April starts, each person creates their own progress thread, and other people post to cheer and encourage. I had a blast on April Fools, and I found, at the end of the month, that they had made me a mod. *rolls eyes*

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Script Frenzy
http://www.scriptfrenzy.org/

This is the June script-writing (screenplays and stageplays) contest sponsored by Chris Baty, the founder of NaNo. I didn’t do it, but the people who did had a really good time, I think. The requirement is 25K, I think, rather than 50K, and they let people collaborate.

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JunNoStringMo (June Novel Stringing Month), known as StringMo
http://stringingwords.creativemindwebdesign.com/news.php

In June a lot of people did Script Frenzy, but some wanted to keep working on their novels. So, misaditas, Rinelle and I, who operate a year-round writers’ site called StringingWords, offered StringMo. As with April Fools, all forms of writing could be counted. Like most sites, StringingWords has trouble with spambots, and so all memberships are personally verified: this means that there’s a bit of a delay (usually only a matter of hours) before your membership is activated.

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JulNoWriMo (July Novel Writing Month), known as JulNo
http://julnowrimo.thewrigro.com/

I didn’t do this one, as I was at the cottage (located in The Land Of No Internet), but some people find that this is their favourite one of the whole year.

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AugNoWriMo (August Novel Writing Month), known as AugNo
http://augnowrimo.proboards85.com/index.cgi

This contest is sponsored by Erin, who’s a participant in NaNo, StringingWords, WriYe, April Fools, etc. I registered for it, but then I went back to the cottage and didn’t finish.

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As ChrisK0 will also doubtless attest, the neat thing about doing these contests (besides, obviously the support and encouragement to keep writing) is the opportunity to make friends with folks from all around the world.

These are the ones that I know (or know of). There are other contests, but I’ll let the people who know them better post about them.

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Gale . . . www.ThornesQuest.com . . . or . . . www.StringingWords.net