A New Start

Recently I entered a short story contest that I saw in the Toronto Star, our local newspaper. I’ve long since submitted it, and hopefully, with any luck, I’ll win. I could really use the prize money….$5000 plus a correspondence writing course worth $3000. I know there’s always room for improvement in my writing, so the writing course might be an invaluable thing. Of course, I could get the teacher from hell that doesn’t like my style of writing.

So, I’m awaiting April 10th eagerly (on or about)…and, it just so happens to be my daughter’s 9th birthday. I hope it’s good luck that day!

Even second and third prizes are nothing to sneeze at…$2000 and $1000 respectively. I wouldn’t pass them up…I do have bills to pay and spending money needed for my trip in May!

So, I thought I would start a new blog…a blog for writing short stories, poetry, and chapters from my books and WIP. I’m still going to keep my other blogs, but I think I need to work on my writing ability, practicing that, rather than trying to make milk come out your nose or making you lose your lunch.

I will also be keeping my reviews and promotions blog and my character’s lives blog, because although they are geared to my writing, and the reviewing of other’s writings, this blog here can be for just random writings, and a few choice writings from my already published works.

I’d like to post my short story that I submitted to the contest, but it has to be unpublished as of the contest, so I don’t want to take any chances.

I will say that I had difficulty coming up with a topic to write about, so I went online and found a writing prompt that sounded good. The one I used was ‘a broken wristwatch, mints and a hug that goes too far’.

I immediately thought of the demented Grandma that always has mints or candies in her mouth, buys or gives you gifts that are broken, or you for some reason can’t use them, like a sweater that would fit a 5 year old, but you’re 10. Of course, everyone loves hugs from Grandma’s.

So, a story was born. Wish me luck with the contest.

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Also, you might be wondering about the blog name, Bent River Books. Bent River is the fictional town that one of my characters, Riley, grew up in. I just thought it sounded like a neat name for my logo for my books. And, because I’m Canadian, I decided to use the maple leaf.

Collin was nice enough to make me an outside cover logo (BRB) and I made a picture one for the inside of my books. I like both.

Collin made his look like a riverbed with running water. I thought his looked good for the outside of my books. Look for it on my covers.

So, look for some new writing blogs and my new logos.