Tuesday top tip - make friends with other writers.

I missed one week's top tip as I was away visiting my writing buddy, Rosemary J Kind. We met online years ago and get together whenever we can – that's slightly easier since she moved and is now only a 5 hour drive away!

Our friendship started as a comment now and again on each other's posts in a writers' forum and we've been helping and encouraging each other in a variety of ways ever since. 

I'm really lucky to have many other writing friends – almost all of whom I initially met online. My writing, and life in general, is better for knowing them. With that in mind, this week's tip is to make contact with other writers in any way you can.

Some ways to include connecting with other writers are - 

Comment on their posts on social media (btw, I'm trying out BlueSky I'm on there as myself and we're there as @Womagwriter )

Make your own social media posts about your writing

Attend events such as book fairs (I'll be at on this Sunday 17th Nov at Aspex, Gunwharf, Portsmouth. It's free entry – please do come and say hello if you're in the area.)

Comment on their blog (warning – watch out for ones with campervans, they might pop round for a cup of tea.)

Join a physical writing group

Join a virtual writing group

Attend workshops and courses

Attend author talks, book signings, launches etc

If you have more suggestions, please say so in the comments!

If you know of any writing groups (physical or virtual) which are currently accepting members, please put details in the comments - and do share any other methods you've used to make contact with writers.

This tip came from Patsy Collins who has written two books for writers. A Year of Ideas:365 sets of writing prompts and exercises, and From Story Idea to Writer, co-authored with Rosemary J. Kind.

Yes, that's the two of us. Yes, it does look quite a lot as though we're in a bar. In our defence, it was closer than the cake shop.

Loads of free entry competitions

 

Sorry, I've been so busy writing and editing as well as with lots of non writing stuff that I'm not keeping up with the blog very well. I'll try to get more organised, but in the meantime, here's a link to loads of free entry writing competitions which close this month. Thanks to my friend Sheila for making me aware of this site.

Here's a list of calls for submissions, kindly supplied by Marguerite.

Update from Lucy Crichton on People's Friends contracts

I've had an email from Lucy Crichton, fiction editor at The People's Friend. She contacted me in response to comments on my last post, about rumours of all rights contracts being issued to some Friend authors. Although I have absolutely no doubt that information was passed on in good faith, it seems there has been a misunderstanding somewhere along the line.

Lucy says, "Just to confirm - no authors have been issued all rights contracts by DCT. 

If any author believes they have been issued an all rights contract, I'd ask them to contact their assigned editor in the first instance."

Lucy's advice to seek an explanation about any parts of a contract you might be unsure about is excellent. We should all read any contracts we're issued, and be sure we understand and agree with the terms before we sign. Make sure you keep a copy too, in case you need to refer to it.

A challenging November?

Good luck to any of you who are attempting NaNO this month. I'm not doing it, but I've challenged myself to write a few more short stories and enter lots more competitions this month than has been the case recently. That shouldn't be difficult as since starting my cosy mystery series I've done very little of either. The third book is now with my beta readers, so I've run out of excuses!

You're very welcome to join in my challenge if you'd like to, or to help me by finding interesting competitions for me to try.

Free entry competition news

(Some of these may have been mentioned in previous posts, but the challenge hadn't been issued then.)

Thank you to Fiona for telling me about this competition with a £1.000 prize. It's for unpublished and emerging authors over the age of 25, and open to fiction and non fiction. They want writers to 'grapple with the spirit of adventure'. We all do that, don't we? 

I do have an excuse not to enter that one, as I'm not eligible. Obviously I would if I could...

One I have entered is the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. You have to be a Commonwealth citizen to take part. My chances of landing the £5,000 are extremely low, but sending something in will have raised them just a little.

The Happiful Poetry Prize is for "poems that explore the topic of mental health and wellbeing in unique, engaging, and empowering ways." That will be a real challenge for me as poetry isn't a strong point, but I will at least try. First prize is £100 with book tokens for runners up.

Debut crime novelists could try this competition with a publishing contract with a $10,000 advance as the prize. I've previously had a novel published after winning a crime novel writing competition (even though it's a romance with just a hint of crime and now self published) so I'm not eligible.

This competition is for science fiction short stories and offers a prize package including paid publication. They want the stories to be realistic - my grasp of science isn't up to that!

Here's another one for crime novelists, (British, Irish and Channel Islandish) Sadly I don't think I'm eligible for that one.