Have you ever participated in the Nano challenge? Every November Nano challenges authors to write an entire novel in one month. If you have participated in the Nano challenge please tell us about your experience. You can find out more about the challenge at http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/whatisnano
Jacob
[Poets are] men stepping on clouds, snaring a world of beauty from the trees and sky, half wild, half human.
— Dylan Thomas
Have you ever been assigned to critique something that was written by a monkey dancing on a keyboard? Do you occasionally find yourself wondering if you have spent more time critiquing a piece than the author did writing it?
When I am assigned to critique something that makes my brain hurt I pick one area like character development, setting, structure, or voice to focus on. I know there is no way I am going to fix everything that is wrong with the dancing monkey in one critique, but I can help him swing to a higher branch by helping him understand how to improve one area.
How do you deal with a dancing monkey?
Jacob
The reason that fiction is more interesting than any other form of literature, to those who really like to study people, is that in fiction the author can really tell the truth without humiliating himself.
— Eleanor Roosevelt
*See all of our writing contests
Purpose: Have fun, enjoy the competition, and become a better author by participating in the peer critique process portion of this contest. Learn more about flash fiction.
Who Can Enter: This contest is open to all authors. All submissions must be posted and assigned critiques completed by December 31, 2009. Entries must be 1000 words or fewer. You may post additional stories to this site for critique, but only one story will be eligible for the contest.
Subject Matter: A holiday theme. Any holiday will do. The flash fiction should adhere to our content policy.
Prizes: The winner of this contest will receive $50.
How to Enter: It’s pretty easy
Decisions: There will be 2 rounds of judging.
Entry Fee: There are no entry fees or purchases of any kind required to enter and win the contest. After you submit your work to the contest you will be required to complete assigned critiques of other authors (4 for free members and 3 for premium members). You will receive 3 critiques of your work in return. Those who do not complete their critiques will not be eligible to win the contest.
Rights: All stories remain the sole property of the author. After we have selected the winner we will seek permission from the author to publish the winning work on our blog. The author is under no obligation to allow this.
Notification: The prize winner will be notified by email on January 9, 2010. We will announce the prize winner on our blog on January 11, 2010.
The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man: nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again and yet live on. Still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men’s hearts, of the hearts of men centuries dead.
— Clarence Day
Over 300 members entered the September 2009 poetry contest. We are proud to announce that “Unending Thread” by jomicn776 is the winner of the September poetry contest.
“Through Death Row” by WordEngineer was second place and “Faiths Crossing” by Nagazel was third place.
All three authors have given us permission to publish their poems as part of this announcement.
by jomicn776
Unending thread, between your heart and mine,
awaits the tug of distance to reveal
a purpose borne of using the divine
to loose our forms, yet strengthen soul’s appeal
that we not tarry in the ether mist,
behind a tattered veil for feigned delight.
Sweet nymphs and stirred emotion, lightly kissed,
are not the true love promised by the night.
The thread pulls back, we reel through space and time
believing all we see is here and now.
Illumination bares the truth in rhyme,
existence rests its head on lover’s brow.
Returning from the dream to find you there,
a halo brume encircling your hair.
Again I want to sleep and travel far,
beyond the earthly boundaries of my form,
and meet you near the heavens’ blazing star;
the kindly light feels safe and free and warm.
We circle round the azure shrouded world,
the thread has bound us surely down the nave.
Remains of day and night before unfurled
and carried on a crimson, golden wave.
Forever we will journey through this life,
no fear of crossing to the farther plane.
Between the two, the best room truly rife
with charity and love in His domain.
No matter if we wake or if we sleep,
Love’s bond a truer marriage couldn’t keep.
by WordEngineer
Passion overtaking senses, overcoming life’s defenses,
It’s values split upon the ground, a last protest the only sound.
The sound: a cry for recompense, a call for justice to commence.
Unheard at first, but echoed round, until, at last, a man is found,
And is impound.
The man, who’s called, “devoid of heart,” his life had long fallen apart,
Without a plan, acting on whim, his actions mean little to him.
His mind: unlearned, jaded and scarred; his heart: untaught, unloved and barred.
He stands accused, he does not care, for broken kin, he’s not aware,
Of their despair:
Torn asunder, hearts a’bleeding, on their anger, hatred feeding,
So hurt from shattered, trampled laws, they blame this man; call him the cause,
And from the darker parts of men, one thing, it seems, could make amend:
They call for justice to prevail, they call for blood to balance scale–
His life to fail.
Through the trial, hardly blinking, hard to know what he is thinking.
He pleads no guilt, accepts no blame, he takes no thought, and shows no shame.
But solemn statements harvest truth, and pile against, and give no ruth.
Perhaps a shadow’s doubt remained, but juries verdict is arraigned–
And guilt proclaimed.
The victims’ kin prepare to read, and state the impact of the deed.
Most read with rage, and wrath, and hate, and yet his stupor won’t abate,
His heart is hard, they cannot reach; nothing, it seems, his walls can breach.
‘Till one forgives, without despise, and man’s indifference knows demise,
And the man– cries.
At this, he starts to comprehend, as judge decrees his life will end,
Regret, at last, for ill-timed death, for squandered time, for wasted breath,
For actions taken with no thought, and for judgments these actions bought.
He is strapped down, his fear–it grows, a needle poke, through blood it flows,
His eyes– they close.
Unable, now, to change his route, dawn takes his life, and snuffs it out,
But, if he could regain the chance, could both his heart and mind advance?
Or would this chance just bring the stain of further sorrow, death, and pain?
Still sits untouched: his final meal; a man who’s heart just learned to feel,
And also– heal.
by Nagazel
My foe and I sought to clash on the rocky shore,
amidst the sweeping wind and ocean’s roar.
We both sat sweating beneath the scorching sky
and watched the other, locked eye to eye.
Our blades were brilliant lengths of light;
a testament from faith, we were in the right.
I was a hero from my native land,
said to wield the power of God in my hand.
He was an enemy whose prowess spread wide
but a heathen, beneath my blue eyes and pale hide.
Reputation, if nothing else, made us both nervous,
the man before us was rumored to be impervious.
Before we met in combat, I offered God a plea
to spare my life next to this shimmering sea.
I held my brazen brand tightly in my grip
But the sight before me almost made it slip,
The tanned man was also praying to his god
much like myself, and I thought it real odd.
Despite the similarity, I pressed on with fury
Because in heaven and earth I’d receive glory.
We both charged forward, driven by belief,
And once our weapons met we knew no relief.
Our roars of fervor and blind rage sang
As we both leapt into the Sturm und Drang
The swords met with the clang of steel
as we both pressed onward with iron will.
With each metal meeting the gulls cawed a retort,
bothered by the discord of our bloodthirsty sport.
For all of our effort neither could deposit
a solid blow into the flesh of our opposite.
With each attempt to strike and fell
An unsettling feeling within me began to dwell.
This man before looked less like demon spawn
And more like myself, defending with brawn
the things he loved and believed to be absolute.
Suddenly, I found I wasn’t as resolute.
Somewhere I knew, as we sought an end,
That another time and place he would’ve been a friend.
But the truths we were taught forced this conflict
And I could no longer avoid what he sought to inflict.
So, against my heart, honed reflexes struck him dead
And painted the glittering sands crimson red.
I burst out in despair and dropped to the ground
The crusader’s armament that’d spilled the blood all around.
We two men were the same in heart and in mind
but what we’d been taught sent us to kill and made us blind.
So there I cried, wracked with sorrow, holding him with my arm
knowing my beliefs had unjustly dealt my reflection fatal harm.
