Hey folks, happy Saturday!

There have been some changes this week that are worth a share.

First, I was recently sent a site by a close writing friend that had a handful of writing contests she thought I might be interested in. Two in particular stood out to me.

First, the James Jones First Novel Fellowship, which, as the title might suggest, a competition for would be writing working on their novel. It requires me to include the first 50 pages of the manuscript and promises a decent cash prize for 1st place and the two runners up. The biggest aspect of the award, though, has to go to the fact that they will publish the first 50 pages in their magazine next year for the winners. This could be huge and really help me get my name out there. The only downside is they reserve the right to whatever is published for 3 months, and the magazine doesn’t release until July 2025. This means, if I win, I can’t publish until October of next year. This would suck, as I have been looking forward to releasing it in the next few months, but I’m only going to be able to enter this competition once.

And, if I lose, I’ll know by this coming September, so I should be able to publish my story at that time. Since I was planning for a late May, early June release, this isn’t all that bad.

Moving on, there was another opportunity I had to take a crack at.

The Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency is a program that would send me out to a homestead for several months. I’d get a monthly stipend, and for an hour of maintenance each day, I’d have several months of isolation to do nothing but write and enjoy nature. Some of my best writing has come from my little retreats I’ve done, but this would be on a completely different level. With months of time to do nothing but write, I could make so much progress on my next book. If I’m lucky, I might even finish one in that time!

Of course, neither of these are guaranteed, but I have to take a shot. So, for that reason, not much writing has been done, save what’s needed to get these two contests taken care of. The deadline for both is the 15th, so I’ll be back to my usual writing schedule after that.

Anyway, that’s all I have for now. Hope you all have a lovely weekend!