anxiety setting in...kind of

Eighty percent of success is showing up.
- Woody Allen

So it's the end of January, and VM should have launched by last week, but clearly, it hasn't.

What's a frustrated me to do? Just keep plugging away. And plugging away.

Confusion with the content system and articles module being set up for the site has created a major lag, thus rendering editorial deadlines inconsequential and teaching me a valuable lesson about remembering to take into account delays on the more technical side of things...over which I have no major control.

Frustrating doesn't even begin to describe it.

But everyone I've spoken to is unanimous with their reassurance that this is exactly the kind of stuff that happens when you start a business. There are unexpected delays. There are problems. There are things to be reworked. There are people to have discussions over discussion with...even if it's the same discussion. There are things to organize. There are deep breaths to take over and over again.

VM will launch... as soon as it's ready. I want it to launch correctly, and if that means delaying it a month, then so be it, but we will launch - soon.

screenplay competitions '09

I never had any doubts about my abilities. I knew I could write. I just had to figure out how to eat while doing this.
- Cormac McCarthy

In addition to all the short story and poetry contests being held, there are also quite a few screenplay competitions with some seriously hefty prizes. How does $10,000 sound for that movie you've always had playing in your head?

Check out just three of the many more that I'm sure are out there. Beyond this, a quick Google search should keep you occupied with plenty of deadlines for the next few months.

1) The 2009 BlueCat Screenplay Competition

For the 11th year, the BlueCat Screenplay Competition is now open for submission of feature length screenplays.

Grand Prize: $10,000
Four Finalists: $1500

All ages are eligible. All entries must be in English and between 80 and 145 pages in length. Submissions are accepted via electronic submission. There is no limit to the number of screenplays you may submit.

Every writer who enters BlueCat receives written script analysis.

Regular Deadline: March 2, 2009; Entry fee $50
Late Deadline: April 1, 2009; Entry Fee $60

All early bird submissions will be eligible to resubmit the screenplay prior to the March 2 deadline for a $35 entry fee.

Quarter-finalists will be announced on June 15th.
Semi-Finalists will be announced on July 15th.
Five finalists will be named on July 23rd and awarded $1500.
The winner will be named on August 1st and awarded $10,000.

2) The Gimme Credit Screenplay Competition

The Gimme Credit Screenplay Competition is open for submissions in the following categories -

Super Shorts: 1 - 5 pages
Shorts: 6 - 30 pages
Features: 80-145 pages

The competition is open to all genres and all writers 18 years of age and older. Plays, television pilots and teleplays are also accepted. All scripts must be in English.

Early Bird Deadline: March 3, 2009
Regular Deadline: June 16, 2009
Late Deadline: September 22, 2009

For more information about entry fees and prizes, visit www.gimmecreditcompetition.com.

3) The WriteMovies.com International Writing Contest

WriteMovies.com is now accepting submissions for its 21st annual writing competition. Screenplays, plays, short stories, and books are eligible, but only 1,000 entries will be accepted in total.

Grand Prize: $3,000 in cash and guaranteed representation (for more, check out www.writemovies.com)

Early Deadline: February 3, 2009; Entry fee $29
Standard Deadline: March 1, 2009; Entry fee $39
Late Deadline: April 2, 2009; Entry fee $49
The flat fee for book submissions is $54.

one nation...under watch

The pen is the tongue of the mind.
- Miguel de Cervantes

Talk about close: With five minutes until the midnight deadline, I just managed to submit my short story entry to the NYC Midnight 3rd Annual Short Story Challenge a short while ago.

As with the other NYC Midnight challenges, there are a few requirements to adhere to, including that the story has to be 2,500 words or less. The genre and subject categories are assigned in accordance with what heat you are placed in - 22 this time for me.

Title: One Nation...Under Watch
Synopsis: Just trying to do his job, Representative Jack Malarcky realizes a little too late the consequences of an innocent proposal as his normal life, under the vigilant eye of the nation’s surveillance system, spirals out of control.
Genre: Political Satire
Subject: Surveillance

By Melissa C. Navia

I remember when the idea first came to me, nothing more than a passing thought. I hadn't even considered it the night before as I reviewed the next day's proposed topics to discuss. The ride to work was preoccupied with pressing matters, like what was for lunch and how many hours until the weekend. And when we filed into chamber, the incessant buzzing of the cameras overhead as we passed through the doors didn't seem so out of place.

But then the arguing began. First there was Rep. Burns who spoke for thirty-three minutes about the spreading vandalism. Threatening graffiti, smashed cameras, and people going to work in mustached disguises to avoid being identified on closed-circuit television. Was the latter even illegal, he asked. If not, then it should be, was the murmured response. Stone-faced agents from the newly dubbed and unwieldy named NSWVA (National Surveillance, Watch, and Vigilance Agency) noted the exchange and tapped away at their paper-thin laptops. Then there was Rep. Laurel who spoke passionately for an hour about the growing paranoia. Apathy, she cried, was at an all-time high. The new crop of jobs in the surveillance industry had produced workers who were spending endless hours reviewing footage of city streets and suburban lawns, listening to millions of conversations about what happened yesterday and didn't happen today, thinking away at new methods of biometric scanning, and infiltrating each other's homes and businesses, only to leave them tired shells with worn-out eyes and ears the rest of the day. The American Optometric Association was reporting an explosion of people in need of prescriptions and the NYPD had counted 962 people staring vacantly at trees in Central Park this past Monday, between the hours of 5 and 9 PM, when many of them had to be carted off home. Something must be done, Rep. Laurel insisted, and the NSWVA took note.

The buzzing overhead began to penetrate my thoughts. But no sooner did I try to shake it away when Rep. Jetham hurried up to complain for fourteen minutes that we needed more money, more money, more money. His district was not an anomaly, he gestured dramatically. Every city, state, and program was in debt. Every week the Capitol votes for more funding to go to cameras, recorders, scanners, operatives, data profiling, electronic thing-ama-jigs, and bugs. Bugs! he repeated, as he shuffled off mumbling that his eight-year-old son's newest game console was outfitted with three new types of trendy surveillance bugs.

Again, the buzzing resurfaced, louder than before. I had yet to hear any solutions offered to the growing headache of problems, and I stole a glance at the agents seated above. And when I turned to look back, Rep. Adams had taken the floor. Quieter than the others and noticeably more upset, he had only one complaint: the unexplained disappearance of people. A hush fell over the chamber. The buzzing was now more unbearable than ever, I cringed, as the agents above shuffled uncomfortably in their velvet-lined seats. His brother-in-law had gone missing over two weeks ago with no explanation at all. The police were uncooperative. The courts had slammed their doors. And no one, he accused, in the Capitol has offered to look into the matter.

Have you asked them to look, offered Rep. Laurel, into his surveillance files? They claim they did, was his listless response, and said that there was no recorded kidnapping, so he must have left of his own accord. Silence fell over the room again.

And this buzzing! Rep. Adams continued, covering his ears. I can't sleep anymore with these maddening sounds wherever I go!

So that was when it happened. I stood up and hurried to the podium to pull Robert away. Back to his seat he went, his sweaty hands still cupped over his ears as he avoided the gaze of the agents above. And as I watched him go, the rest turned to me. What could I say? After what we had just heard, I couldn't imagine sitting through much more. So I proposed the only thing I could think of to make the arguing and the problems and the ceaseless buzzing go away:

"Why don't we stop all the recordings of…everything…and go back to the way things were before?"

And that was it. There, I said it, for everyone to hear. And yes, the recordings, too. However it could have been captured, it was, etched in electronically encoded time.

So I really shouldn't have been too unnerved when the agents from above, with the awkward acronyms embroidered on their jackets, stood up to speak. The random acts of vandalism would soon be stopped even before they start, thanks to the newest in CCTV and biometric technology, one said to Rep. Burns. Our superior surveillance systems have practically eradicated unemployment, another reminded Rep. Laurel, and the AOA could not be happier to know that the eye prescriptions they are handing out today will be the wave of eyeglass/contact lens surveillance technology tomorrow. As for money, chimed in a third, and Rep. Jetham looked away, everyone should know that money spent on surveillance means less money needed elsewhere. Surveillance is the first line of defense, and soon, it will be the only one. And as a reminder to all, said the sternest of the group, our improved surveillance operations are still and will always be the most efficient way of removing criminals from our streets. Robert did not look up.

Vigilance is protection.

And with that, they marched out. The meeting was adjourned, with me still standing at the podium, wondering what terrible thing I might have just done. I walked to my seat, picked up my papers, and left Robert grumbling about how upset his wife would be when he went home.

Hours later, I was driving home, along the same route I had always used. Yet this time was different. Everything seemed new. As I waited at a traffic light, I spotted one, two, nine, seventeen nests of CCTV cameras positioned in the intersection. The shiny, silver clusters panned and jerked up and down, right and left, capturing everything in sight. But I could’ve sworn, and maybe I was wrong, that at least two of them were locked on me. And when the light turned green, I gladly hit the gas, and they, too, obediently followed until I was out of sight.

Not to mention, because I guess I should, the graffiti I must’ve ignored every time I had passed them before. The Camera Lies. Vigilance is a Hoax. Watch Out. All of them were in drab, scrawled bubble letters, some of them incomplete as if they had been interrupted in mid-execution. Further up, I spotted officers violently striking down video cameras that had been hastily set up on sidewalks. A teenager lay sprawled on the floor in handcuffs, as his (I assumed) smashed cameras lay broken at his side.

I shook the image away and turned the radio on, as I sped up to make it home. The increase in CCTV traffic, announced the reporter, can be thanked for the heightened operating noises of public recording devices. And then the broadcast cut to the one sound I had been trying to avoid all day: that mind-numbing buzz. Turning the radio off, I swerved into the driveway. I gathered my things and ran indoors, foolishly ignoring the tall, well-bundled man staring at me from my neighbor’s front lawn. Once inside and breathing hard, I stole a glance through the blinds of the living room window, but the figure was gone. Maybe he had been my neighbor, I convinced myself. But let’s be honest, I knew he wasn’t.

I was exhausted, I’ll admit, and should’ve have been far more careful, but hindsight is so much clearer from the trees by which I now sit. At the time, I didn’t think not to make any phone calls to my cousin in Connecticut or my sister on Long Island. I didn’t think not to mention the day’s earlier incidents to my friend who called from Arizona. And of course I didn’t think it strange to walk into my room and find the television on, a faint buzzing emanating from its spot on the wall. I was too tired to make a conspiracy out of it, and so I went to sleep, under the watchful eyes and ears of the NSWVA.

The next day I tried to make small talk, but Reps. Burns, Laurel, and Jetham blatantly ignored my meager attempts. Where’s Robert? I inquired. He’s gone, scribbled my secretary on a notepad and then proceeded to rip it up and throw it away. I got the hint, said nothing more, and thought of lunch only hours away.

Over an egg salad sandwich—that’s when they came. Agents from the NSWVA. I was escorted to their offices at the other end of the Capitol, where they sat me down and told me plainly, in their stern, robotic way, that they were sorry to see me resign my position as elected official. Oh really? I gasped. Effective immediately, they replied. But why? I persisted. And the rest I don’t quite remember. But if you really must know, I’m sure you can refer to the surveillance files and see what the video says. Look them up: Jack Malarcky. Given the suffocating buzz in the room, I’m almost certain the whole scene was recorded ten different ways.

And that would’ve been it, the end of the story, but the fact that I’m telling you this should be an indication that it most certainly was not. I did as I was told, quietly as I was asked, and the next day I found myself sitting alone at home. No one called, no one knocked on my door. So I disconnected the television and ripped out the telephone wires and, after dropping it in the toilet, smashed my cell phone to bits. All of these things I took outside and left them by the street.

Then depression set in, and I slept all day. When I awoke each night, there was nothing for me to do but go out for late-night drives and stops at the convenient store. Then post-nasal drip developed into a sinus infection and a frustratingly temperamental fever. Next thing I knew, I was a bundled mess of coats and scarves and gloves and hats every time I stepped out of my door. It was mid-January, what else was a sick man like me to do? Yes, mid-January, I remember thinking, when it struck me that my annual membership to the wholesale grocery store was about to expire. With no paycheck in the near future, I did what any respectable person would do—I went and bought everything in bulk that I could. Bags of rice, cartons of milk, larger-than-necessary boxes of cereal, dozens of packaged frozen foods. It must’ve looked strange, I admit, but I couldn’t have imagined who would bother to be looking. And then, as if the rest was not enough, one night, as I prepared to go out for a drive, I turned the ignition only to hear the sounds of a struggling engine. So I opened the garage, rolled the car in, and went to sleep convinced it couldn’t get any worse.

But it did.

The next day, as I tried to make sense of the inner workings under the hood of my car, they came as quietly and as quickly as they had done for me only a few weeks before. The agents with the acronyms burnt into their cores arrested me without even a word. A nice to see you again would have sufficed, but even that would’ve been asking too much.

Less than an hour later, I stood before a judge who informed me what I was being charged with, a direct result of the suspicious activities they had caught on the cameras in my house, the ones across the street, and the latest in trendy bugs planted in the chassis of my car. Not to mention, he reminded, the conversations we recorded and the behavior our operatives (he motioned to a clump of well-bundled men in the corner) duly noted.

But wait, I interjected, frantically explaining the depression, the sinus infection, the now-expired membership card, and the sputtering engine. The judge looked on as an agent from the NSWVA stepped forward:

“That’s not what the cameras said.”

And with that I was sentenced to ten years in jail for the countless number of illegal recorded activities I had committed, and, in case it could ever be proven that they had indeed not been illegal, I was sentenced to another ten for wasting taxpayers’ money and the state’s time. Indeed, if I had known that a trip to the supermarket was going to call for the installation of nine HD surveillance cameras around the perimeter of my house and the round-the-clock watch of five internationally trained operatives, I would’ve never left the house.

But I did leave the house, and a jail in the countryside was where I ended. Once there, I was shocked to see the state of disrepair into which the state’s highest-security prison had fallen. What would be my home for the next ten (or twenty) years was an atrocious mess of rust and decay. Even the cameras were in disarray, and the entire compound was dangerously understaffed. What’s the reason for this, I asked a tired-looking warden. No money, he laughed, to watch the criminals anymore. I smiled at the irony and wished Rep. Jetham all the best.

So with everything falling apart, and the locks on the jail cells less than sturdy, it was only a matter of time before the worst of us devised a plan to escape. And when we did (unmonitored, of course), the wardens stepped aside. We were murderers and drug dealers, rapists and thieves, but we were also people who had disappeared for doing nothing at all. There was me, as you know, but there were also men like Robert and his brother-in-law who had spent weeks, months, and some even years for doing everyday things and trying to live decent lives…

I’m not trying to make excuses; it’s just the very truth. From the hills, we met with other groups of escapees, and together the self-proclaimed leaders planned the attack. Sitting in the trees, writing to you, I can see the houses and the buildings down below. And I guess I could quietly slip away, hail a cab or catch a bus, and once in the city I could alert authorities and give away the horror being plotted in the hills above. But on second thought, it would be a waste of money and my time. I’m sure the judge who sentenced me will understand.

And besides, if anything good is to come of this, I'll finally have done something interesting—and illegal—for the cameras to record.

no sleep for VM

You don't have to be great to get started, but you have to get started to be great.
- Les Brown

It's 2:24 in the morning. I'm tired. I've spent much of the night working on VM-related stuff...e-mailing writers, adding to the editorial list, checking off things from the To Do list, reading up on the news, updating our VM group Facebook page, sending more e-mails, thinking, thinking, thinking.

And every so often I can't help but wonder...Is this going to work? By all accounts, it should. It makes perfect sense...to me anyway. But the more I get into the thick of things, the more I realize I'm fully committed here, the nagging question persists.

So persist away. If I wasn't doing all this work and making visible progress, the question probably wouldn't even occur to me because there'd be no risk involved, no reason to worry. One year ago the thought didn't occur to me because VM was still sitting atop a lofty bar stool in a corner of my head.

Since then, things have changed. I'm getting it done. I'm putting in serious hours. I'm fully invested. I'm anxious. I'm hungry. I'm eager.

I'm just getting started.

But I'm really quite tired.

writing competitions in '09

You must keep sending work out; you must never let a manuscript do nothing but eat its head off in a drawer. You send that work out again and again, while you're working on another one. If you have talent, you will receive some measure of success - but only if you persist.
- Isaac Asimov

Let's kick off '09 on a competitive note...check out just 10 of the new year's writing competitions with fast-approaching deadlines:

* all information below has been retrieved from each competition's respective website, accessible via a link by clicking on the competition's name *

1. Highlights 2009 Fiction Contest

Category:
Contemporary world-cultures stories; up to 800 words (up to 500 words for beginning readers)

Prizes:
Three prizes of $1,000 or tuition for the Highlights Foundation Writers Workshop at Chautauqua.

Entry dates:
All entries must be postmarked between January 1, 2009, and January 31, 2009.


2. NYC Midnight 3rd Annual Short Story Challenge 2009

The Short Story Challenge 2009 is an international creative writing competition, now in it's 3rd year, that challenges participants to create original short stories in as little as 24 hours.

Entry Deadline - January 14, 2009

▪ Anyone may compete from anywhere in the world

▪ There are 2 rounds

▪ 1st Round (January 16-24, 2009) : Writers are placed randomly in heats. Each heat is assigned a genre and a subject (ex. comedy : competing lemonade stands or horror : a family reunion).

▪ Writers have 1 week to write an original short story (2,500 words max).

▪ Winners are chosen from the 1st Round to advance to the 2nd round and compete for thousands in cash and prizes.

▪ 2nd Round (March 13-14, 2009) : All of the writers receive the same genre and subject at midnight (EST time) and have just 24 hours to write an original short story.

▪ A panel of judges review the final round stories and winners are chosen!

3. Charles Johnson Student Fiction Award
* as featured on Winning Writers

Deadline February 28 (don't enter before February 1), former submission period March 1-31.

Highly recommended free contest for US college and graduate students offers $1,000 and publication in Crab Orchard Review for a short story, maximum 20 double-spaced pages. The award competition is open to all undergraduate and graduate students who are US citizens or permanent residents currently enrolled full- or part-time in a US college or university.

4. Tom Howard/John H. Reid Short Story Contest

Postmark Deadline: March 31, 2009

Now in its 17th year. Prizes of $2,000, $1,000, $500 and $250 will be awarded, plus five High Distinction awards of $200 each and six Most Highly Commended Awards of $100 each. Submit any type of short story, essay or other work of prose, up to 5,000 words. You may submit work that has been published or won prizes elsewhere, as long as you own the online publication rights. $15 entry fee. Submit online or by mail. Early submission encouraged. Winning Writers is assisting with entry handling for this contest. Judges: John H. Reid and Dee C. Konrad.

5. Margaret Reid Poetry Contest for Traditional Verse

Postmark Deadline: June 30, 2009

Now in its sixth year, this contest seeks poetry in traditional verse forms such as sonnets and free verse. Both published and unpublished poems are welcome. Prizes of $2,000, $1,000, $500 and $250 will be awarded, plus five High Distinction awards of $200 each and six Most Highly Commended Awards of $100 each. The entry fee is $7 for every 25 lines you submit. Submit online or by mail. Early submission encouraged. This contest is sponsored by Tom Howard Books and assisted by Winning Writers. Judges: John H. Reid and Dee C. Konrad.

6. Winning Writers - Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest

Online Submission Deadline: April 1, 2009

Winning Writers invites you to enter the eighth annual Wergle Flomp Humor Poetry Contest, called "famous" by Writer's Digest. Fifteen cash prizes totaling $3,336.40 will be awarded, including a top prize of $1,359. There is no fee to enter. Judge: Jendi Reiter.

7. Winning Writers - War Poetry Contest

Postmark Deadline: May 31, 2009

We seek 1-3 original, unpublished poems on the theme of war for our eighth annual contest, up to 500 lines in total. We will award $5,000, including a top prize of $2,000. Submit online or by mail. The entry fee is $15. Judge: Jendi Reiter. See the complete guidelines and past winners.

8. Annual Writer's Digest Writing Competition

Entry Deadline: May 15, 2009.

Compete and Win in 10 Categories!

* Inspirational Writing (Spiritual/Religious)
* Memoirs/Personal Essay
* Magazine Feature Article
* Genre Short Story (Mystery, Romance, etc.)
* Mainstream/Literary Short Story
* Rhyming Poetry
* Non-rhyming Poetry
* Stage Play
* Television/Movie Script
* Children's/Young Adult Fiction

Grand Prize: $3,000 cash and a trip to New York City to meet with editors or agents.Writer's Digest will fly you and a guest to The Big Apple, where you'll spend three days and two nights in the publishing capital of the world. While you're there, a Writer's Digest editor will escort you to meet and share your work with four editors or agents! Plus, you'll receive a free Diamond Publishing Package from Outskirts Press.

Entry Fee: Poems are $15 for the first entry; $10 for each additional poem submitted in the same online session. All other entries are $20 for the first manuscript; $15 for each additional manuscript submitted in the same online session.

9. The 2009 BlueCat Screenplay Competition

Regular deadline: March 2, 2009. Entry fee $50
Late Deadline: April 1, 2009. Entry Fee $60

The BlueCat Screenplay Competition is now open for submission of feature length screenplays for the 11th year!

Grand Prize: $10,000

Four Finalists: $1500

Every writer who enters BlueCat receives written script analysis.

10. The Ledge Magazine 2009 Fiction Awards Competition

Postmark Deadline: February 28, 2009.

Prizes: First prize: $1,000 and publication in The Ledge Magazine. Second prize: $250 and publication in The Ledge Magazine. Third prize: $100 and publication in The Ledge Magazine.

Entry Fee: $10 for the first story; $6 for each additional story. $20 subscription (two issues) to The Ledge gains free entry for the first story.

All stories must be previously unpublished and not exceed 7,500 words. Simultaneous submissions are acceptable but we must be notified if your story is accepted elsewhere for publication.

So there's 10, but there are plenty of more out there. Click here for some of my favorite websites for writers.

And if you're still hungry for more contests, check out these two sites I just came across -

http://www.freelancewriting.com/writingcontests.php

http://www.fanstory.com/contests

2009...day 1

It is never too late to be what you might have been.
- George Elliot

It's 2009!!

So far I have been to work and the gym. I've done some relaxing, some cleaning, some writing, and in a few hours, I'll go to dinner with Alex and Soraya.

As for my plans for the new year - there are so many!!

For starters, my goal with this blog is to post at least twice a week. And considering that my other goal is to sit down and write every single day (that's right, every single day), I should have plenty to blog about as I get closer to finishing my novel.

So that makes one blog down for the week, one to go =)