This week Sheila shares some of her research for a book she is working on about creative writing. What do you think about when you hear the term creative writing? Does it help to have the term defined? What questions to you have about creative writing that she might demystify?

Everyone’s been busy, often too busy to write. We want to help get your new year off to a good writing start–so the current winter WIR No-Contest Contest deadline has been extended to January 31st for the freewrite entries and February 28th for your re-entry based on Sheila Bender’s detailed response to the freewrite you send in. It’s easy to enter, $15 per entry for WIR subscribers and $45 for a nonsubscriber for the first entry because that entry fee contains a $30 year’s subscription to Writing It Real, our online instructional magazine for those who write from personal experience.

Go ahead — read our contest guidelines and make your submission here!

H.O.W. Journal Short Story Contest H.O.W. Journal is hosting its first short story contest to be judged by acclaimed author Susan Minot. Guidelines: The contest is open to all writers and all themes The word limit is 12,000. We do consider unpublished novel excerpts if they feel like complete stories. It’s fine to submit more than one story. Please note that all submissions should be clearly typed manuscripts, double-spaced on 8 1?2 x 11 inch white paper, one side only. Reading Fee per story – $20.00 Send your submissions and reading fee, to H.O.W. Journal Short Story Contest, 12 Desbrosses Street, New York, New York, 10013. Awards: 1st Place – $1000 and publication in H.O.W. Journal 2nd Place – $300 and publication in H.O.W. Journal 3rd Place – $100 and publication in H.O.W. Journal Submissions must be received in the H.O.W. offices by May 15th 2010.

This week we are happy to post tips from long-time writer and workshop leader Joel Vance along with a newspaper article he published after having successfully cut the length in half using his craft principles. Let us know what you think of the principles and how you approach your work when it needs focus, organizing, and cutting.

I hope to hear from more of you with freewrites from the easy-to-use prompt the contest suggests. Visit the contest guidelines page for full information. Take some time for yourself and write for 15 minutes, send it into the contest and receive my feedback so you can take the freewrite and craft it into a finished essay or poem. It’s quick, it’s easy, and you’ll get a boost to your writing for 2010!-s

Contact  Kyra Freestar, administrator, Author-Editor Clinic
info@authoreditorclinic.com (206) 300-2601 for information on online editing classes starting in 2010.

FICTION OPEN
Deadline: January 2, 2010
1st place wins $2,000, publication in Glimmer Train Stories, and 20 copies.
2nd-place: $1,000 and possible publication.
3rd-place: $600 and possible publication.
Results post on February 28, 2010. Winning story will be published in Issue 78.
Other considerations:
Open to all writers, all themes.
Reading fee: $20 per story.
Word count range: 2,000 – 20,000. (Don’t worry: A great 2,000 word story can compete against a great 20,000 word story. It’s the story that counts.)

The prize is a book. The Facebook page you post on is full of wonderful haiku.

Here’s a press dedicated to publishing essays!

Therapist and poet Joan Messa shows us how to keep a dream journal that will help us remember and amass material that comes to us when we are asleep. While keeping a dream journal is known to be valuable for self-growth, it is certainly also valuable for collecting writing material and being inspired by it. We write for self-growth; in writing we see more deeply.

If you’d like to add to Joan Massa’s advice or let us know how you use (or will now use) dreams in your writing life, please make a comment.