Writing Competitions – Booktrust List

While hunting down good reading websites for my day job I found that the nice people at the booktrust have a very useful list of UK writing competitions.

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/books-and-reading/short-stories/prizes/

The rest of the site is also worth exploring. There is a writing section with author interviews, advice, and of course the above mentioned competition list. Most of the site is dedicated to reading, so have a look if you’re interested in reading suggestions, book news etc.

Call of CThulu linkies

RT @PCATestCentre: Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land review: Joyously thoughtful yet equally (and knowingly) silly old-school tactic… http://t.co/9z5aELfa

Since I quite loved the Xbox thinger (that hopefully one day I will actually review) thought I’d share this…

Rules to be broken?

If anything, the fact that these genres are so wide open mean that there are tons of rules out there, some unspoken and some written in black and white. And sometimes, breaking the rules is the only way to tell a really fascinating story. Here are 10 rules of SF and fantasy that more authors should consider breaking from time to time.

Go on you lot: get on with it! 😉

They (not the movie)

Consider the following sentence:

A person who does not read this blog regularly may find that ____ grammar suffers.

Now fill in the blank with the appropriate pronoun. If you’re of a certain age, you’ll unflinchingly fill the blank with “his.” If you lean leftish sociopolitically, you’re more likely to provide “her” (or to alternate between “his” and “her” when using such sentences). If the thought of filling in that blank fills you with uncertainty or even dread, maybe you’d supply “their,” which makes the grammar nerds squirm.

Showing vs. Telling

“Writing instructors and editors often dole out the suggestion that writers should show rather than telling, but it’s really pretty abstract (telling!) advice.“

25 Films that you should be a little excited about

Nick Petrick writes:

“This is a list of some of our most anticipated movies of 2011. These films have the potential to knock a cinephiles socks off and hopefully most of them will. I must admit, after making this list, this could be a truly fantastic year for movie fans.“