The Fantasy Writing Contest

Calling all speculative fiction writers! Or more specifically, fantasy writers. The folks at the Fantasy Writing Contest are collecting short story submissions for an anthology they are putting together. Emm, actually, they've been collecting submissions for several months now, but I only just got wind of this a few days ago. The deadline is the 30th of June, so if you happen to have a fantasy short story lying around on your hard drive, or you're able to crank out 1000 - 7,500 words between now and then, you should seriously consider submitting. There are no entry fees, and you stand a chance of winning a cash prize too i.e. in addition to being selected for inclusion in their anthology.

At first I wasn't sure whether or not I was going to try and write something up before the deadline, primarily because of my ongoing campaign which I had already scheduled at the time. But I've been mulling over some great ideas in my head. This would serve as a short story prequel to my series, Guardians & The Lost Paradise, and would flesh out more of the backstory that was briefly touched upon throughout the series.

Personally, I'm more interested in the motivation to write something that this contest provides than any cash prizes. Okay, so maybe I'm a little bit motivated by the money too. But in the event that I don't win the money or inclusion (a highly probable outcome, considering the tens upon thousands of submissions they must have received by now), I plan on putting the short story up online for free. This might, in the long run, help generate more interest for my series.

What about you? Are you going to try and crank out a short story before the deadline? Or perhaps you're one of the tens of thousands who have already submitted one...? As for me, the decision is already made and I managed to squeeze out (a rather measly) 500 words earlier today. It felt good though. Well, at least it's better than staring at that big round 0 on my campaign homepage.