Notes from Underground

Notes from Underground

Well, I  did it.  I took the plunge and entered Literary Lab's  Notes from Underground contest. 

The title comes from a novella by Fyodor Dostoyevsky that is part rambling narrative and part story. It's a piece of writing that is both highly experimental and deeply personal. For the contest, we want you writers to feel that same freedom of expression, taking out the judging process to the best of our ability.

Taking a tip from Dostoyesky and the myriad number of stream of consciousness stories I've read over the past year, I got creative. The first part of the contest is the application - a free form, no rules, no holds barred 5 page montage convincing the judges (Davin, Scott and Michelle) why your writing should be included in the anthology.   The first couple pages were a meandering walk through my past and all the jobs I had which over a 30 year period were remarkably eclectic and exposed to me to a myriad number of characters.  People who loved to tell their life stories to complete strangers - they do, they really do.  And how these experiences taught me to write and lead to this point. The 2nd part a short story which just flowered into something interesting.  

For the 2nd stage of the process, they'll choose 25 folks who will each get to submit a 10 page story of their choice to be put into the anthology.  The book will be published and available on smashwords and amazon and all proceeds will go to charity.  


I just realized why I was nervous about the whole thing. Because it is my first time to enter any type of writing contest.  I'm proud of myself for taking the leap.  Taking that first step and getting over the first hurdle is always the hardest thing to do. Now that I've done it, hopefully it is going to spur me on to finishing my current WIP.  Once I'm done with that and start working on editing my other WIPS, I may just try my hand at other literary contests.  


Wish me luck!