Emily

The contest. Not Dickinson.

I'm getting ready to submit the first 7,000 words of my novel to the new YA category in Houston's RWA annual Emily contest. I'm pretty excited about this, as it will be the first "serious" writing contest I've ever entered. It will be great to get some feedback from utterly unbiased readers - judges who have no idea who I am and who have no stake in making me feel happy :) Of course, this could also be painful, but no pain, no gain I guess!

The down side is that I recently had a revelation about my novel's opening, and while I'd originally planned to submit as is, now that I have a completely new beginning in mind, it doesn't make sense to submit the old one. But now that the contest is open to submissions, and they limit the number of entries in each category, I'm feeling a time crunch. I guess I ought to stop blogging and start novelizing!

But before I do, I'd like to leave you all with a little ditty I composed in honor of Emily. Dickinson, not the contest:

Emily! Emily Dickinson!
Emily! My brain is so sick that on
Saturday night, I find myself thinking of you.

Your poetry! Is full of obscurity!
Your poetry! It's driving me nuts, you see
My head might explode! But that was your goal from the start.