K. Z. Richards

Hello, I’m back again, as promised. In my last post, I talked a bit about my reluctance to post publicly, and I’m not gonna lie–there might have been a tiny voice that told me to delete the post and sink back into oblivion. BUT I’m happy to say that that voice has been squelched (for now) and writing is happening.

For the last several weeks, I have been participating in the Writer’s Games, and it is by far the best choice I could have made for my writing this summer. For those who haven’t heard of it, the Writer’s Games is a free competition where writers are given a prompt every weekend, and they have 72 hours to produce and submit a short story related to that prompt. At the end of the competition, writers receive feedback on their stories and winning entries are published in the Writer’s Workout anthology, 72 Hours of Insanity.

This year’s competition is nearly over with only one event remaining, but I can already tell that my writing has improved drastically over the last several weeks. Knowing that I have a strict deadline every Monday night has compelled me to not only make time for writing, but also to go through the entire writing process–from inception and outlining to revising and proofreading–multiple times in rapid succession. If I ever needed something to give me a kick in the pants and get the writing juices flowing, this has been it.

This year’s competition consisted of two mock events, a practice event, and the five scored events. I have chosen to participate in every event so far, and it’s a good thing I did. The first mock event turned out to be a disaster and a huge learning experience for me. Not only were my writing muscles stiff and out of shape; my brain was a little rusty with second-grade math and made the mistake of thinking that midnight on Tuesday meant Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. On Monday night, while taking a bathroom break, I suddenly realized my mistake. With only 12 minutes left and not the 24 hours I thought I had, I jumped off the toilet, rushed my story into an ending and submitted it, neglecting proper formatting, title information, and any sort of revision. Ironically, one of the “core concepts” I was supposed to be focusing on for that event was pacing, so the feedback for that story should be fun …

With nowhere to go but up, the rest of the events have gone much better. I can see clear improvement from one story to the next, and I’ve rediscovered the thrill of writing. Monday night, after I’ve submitted my story, I ride a writer’s high and chat my husband’s ear off like a kid after the first day of school. I’m sure he’s tired of pausing our Hulu show to listen to me jabber on about my stories, but I really can’t get enough of that feeling. It’s like the runner’s high I get after a hard workout, but instead of reflecting on a physical achievement, my mind is swimming in a pool of dopamine mixed with hopeful creativity. It makes me want to keep going and shows me that it truly is a rite of writing to make time for your passion and see it through to its completion.

Although this year’s competition is almost over, I would highly recommend that you keep an eye out for next year, because this is an opportunity you won’t want to miss.

Do you know of any upcoming writing competitions that you’d recommend? Please comment below! I’m going to be going through some serious withdrawals after Monday night (NOT Tuesday night, ha ha) and will need to start working towards my next deadline.