A contest

Yesterday I spent a good chunk of the day doing something that was not increasing the word count of the book I'm currerntly working on.  Lordchaser (working title) is at over 100k now.  It's almost caught up the the number of kilometers I've driven in my car.  Maybe it deserves a rest.

But I digress.

Yesterday I spent some time writing for a contest on a fictionpress forum called Labyrinth.  I was invited to 'check it out' by FyloeFox, the moderator.  When I saw that it was a forum about reviews, I humed and hahed, but then managed to find something cool - Writing Contests!

The August prompt had been extended.  If ever there was ever an equivalent of a call to arms for writing, this was it for me.  So I worked into the wee hours of the morning on a short story.  Less than 3000 words short.  Ouch.  I remember getting marked down in high school English for not keeping to the word count on short story assignments.  Then again, I also got marked because my writing was absolute crap.  I'm still not convinced that I've gotten much better; I just don't get graded anymore.  :)

I woke up this morning to find that I'd posted Birthday Present without reading it through.  I immediately panicked because at 1am in the morning, my mind is usually a frothing sea of crazy.  I quickly updated it this morning with some changes.  Any day when I don't go off on a thousand word tangent on marine wildlife is a good day.

I can't wait to read the submissions from the other contestants.  I want to know what they did with the prompt.  I also have a competitive streak about me.  It's probably going to drive me to participate in September/October as well.

I really should not participate in forums.  It's like a black hole that sucks up time.  But sometimes I just can't resist falling to the welcoming arms of procrastination.