Writers of the Future

[Bookstore Guy]

Hey guys and gals - If you were thinking of finishing up a shorts story or novella and submitting it for consideration anywhere, you might want to try finishing it up sooner rather than later and get it in in the Fourth Quarter contest for this years Writers of the Future. If your story is 17K or less, I'd recommend trying to get it in this quarter which ends September 30th. Seems like you guys (myself included) should try getting used to submitting your work. I notice for myself that I feel more motivated since I am actually sending stuff in for consideration.

this is just an FYI, but I thought some of you might take the suggestion to heart.

[ErikHolmes]

I have a story I am working on, and hoping to have done by the deadline.

(Then again, I said that about the story before the last deadline too )

[Silk]

Yeah. What Erik said.

[Chaos]

I "finished" my Writers of the Future piece. Letting stew for a while until late August before I send it in.

[Bookstore Guy]

I figure I will learn the results of my story one day. It's been 3 months. Of course, the longer they take, the longer they are considering my story. I read that the average rejection time is around 45 days.

[Silk]

Sounds like you're doing pretty good then.

[WriterDan]

Double what Bookstore Guy said.

As an aside, there's an online crit group that's doing WotF entries exclusively (of which I am a part) if anyone is interested.  We're taking advantage of Orson Scott Cards Hatrack River Writers Workshop.  Registration for the board is free through OSC's website, and then our discussion postings are in the Hatrack Groups forum.  Recently, we've been pumping out some pretty regular HM's, and I think we have a lot of good writers around but we could always use more.

On the submission side, I have one in for the current quarter (Q03) that I was pretty pleased with by the time I finished it, and am about 70% done with my submission for the next quarter (Q04).  Setting a goal to submit a new short story every quarter has really helped me get closer to the "regular writing" goal that I've had for a long time.

[Silk]

Thanks WD! I'll have to check that out. And a story every quarter - good for you. That's a great goal to have.

[Recovering_Cynic]

When you say 17k, you mean number of words right?  Do you have a link to more contest details?

[Silk]

Yes, 17k words. Full contest rules are here.

[Bookstore Guy]

Have you heard anything on yours, WriterDan?  It's odd, because I hear about people getting rejected quickly and often, yet all I have heard is that I was officially in Q3. I'm crossing my fingers for us!

[Silk]

Seconded. Good luck to the pair of you!

(Starting to get a bit more hopeful about fixing and finishing one of my stories for WotF...)

[Recovering_Cynic]

I just submitted a polished version of my short story Survivor to the contest.  How do they send out notifications?  Any idea how many submissions they get per period?  Do I have half a chance in hades?

[Bookstore Guy]

They get several thousand a quarter. I've seen varied numbers, but a lot around the 8-10 thousand mark. Don't know how accurate that is.

Assuming you followed the directions, you should get an email stating your story was officially entered in the quarter. You prolly wont get this email until late September. Of course, this is how it all worked for me, but I doubt I'm special.

I figure you have the same chance as anyone for this contest. It's hard to tell what they look for. I'm surprised my story hasn't been rejected yet, because it is more of a horror short story than anything fantasy. So yeah, you have a chance of being accepted. You have to figure most of the stuff they receive is complete garbage.

[Recovering_Cynic]

I'll let you see mine if you let me see yours