Loads of money!

The photos are a random selection of dahlias, seen at a garden I visited If I ever have loads of money to spare, I'll spend quite a lot of it on dahlias – but not as much as I'll spend on tulips!

What would you treat yourself to if you won a big cash prize?

Free to enter writing competitions.

Thanks to Sharon Boothroyd for sending me the link to the Commonwealth short story prize, which opens 1st September. To enter you must be a commonwealth citizen. There are regional cash prizes and a grand prize of £5,000.

I think I previously mentioned the mysterious murders competition, but when Sharon reminded me of it I wasn't sure.

Sharon says of these competitions "The cash prizes are very high, which kind of puts me off. I'd rather try and win £50 than £3,000, as I'd stand a better chance."

I'm sure she's right that the bigger competitions will attract more entries, but personally that doesn't put me off. I'll have a go at any competition where I think I can come up with an entry which fits the requirements. Lack of time is my most usual reason for not entering.

How about you? Do you like to try for the bigger prizes, and well known competitions, or keep it more low key? 

 Womag news

Thanks to Sharon Boothroyd for sharing the the updated People's Friend word counts, in a comment to last week's post. Sharon was able to access the info via a saved link. At time of writing this post I, and others, couldn't access everything on their website. Hopefully that's all sorted now, but just in case, here they are –

For the weekly:
1, 200, 2000, & 3,000
For the PF special:
1000, 1, 500, 2,500 & 3, 500 & 4,000
Can go 10 % under, but not over.

Other magazines do allow leeway in both directions, but keep in mind that going over means the story is likely to be cut. You might prefer to do that yourself, than have the editor take out the 'wrong' bits.