Dave Duncan

It’s that time of year again. The time when CBC announces that their Literary Awards are open for submission. I don’t know about you, but I always get giddy around this time of year… like a kid at Christmas. I dream of submitting dozens of works by November, only to put it off until the last second and submit one piece at the 11th hour. I’m that kind of writer, I guess.

Well, not this year. This year it’s going to be different. I’m going to step out of the cycle of procrastination and into the cycle of… writing a lot (that’s an example of award-winning writing, by the way). I’m challening myself to write and submit at least one entry per month until the end of the contest. To keep things interesting, I’m going to submit to all three categories (Short story, creative non-fiction, and poetry) and I’ll likely burn out in the process. It’s going to be AWESOME!

I think I fielded a pretty good short story last year (which I’ll publish on my site this fall) and after a winter and spring of puttering over story ideas, character sketches, and short story segments, I’m ready to dive in and get some stories going. That also means that I’ll be looking for some trusty editors to constructively criticize my works (no ‘yes men’) without crushing my fragile ego and spirit.

So if you see me in an air-conditioned cafe (more likely an air conditioned bar) this summer writing furiously in my Moleskine notebook, it’s pretty safe to say I’ll be working on fulfilling this challenge… or writing love poetry to my soon-to-be Volvo.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 13th, 2006 at 10:30 am and is filed under Challenges, Writing.