The most valuable of talents is never using two words when one will do.
--Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson's advice is excellent, except when one is working on NaNoWriMo. In that case, using two or three words instead of one is quite appropriate to reach the word count. As long as the text is cleaned up after the word count has been submitted, that is.
I am closing in on the end of my NaNo project. I have reached 48,911 words. I have also run out of story, so I am now going back and filling in the detail of the last four or five chapters. They are quite sketchy, so there is plenty of work to do on them. At this point I am still not trimming words (see Jefferson's quote above). I'm adding words, primarily description. I tend to be a minimalist in my first draft.
I'm starting to notice contest possibilities. Marjorie M. Liu posted a link to the Barclay Sterling contest, while Sylvia Day linked to the Amber Heat Wave contest. My NaNo story wouldn't work for the 5,000-12,000 word Amber contest, but I came up with a new idea and have started another story that should fit into that word count.
Yes, you read that correctly. I have started working on another story when I haven't finished the futuristic for NaNoWriMo. But I had this great idea . . .
Anyway, I know there are highly diverging thoughts about writing contests. Some people think they are terrific, while other writers say they aren't worth doing. For now, I'm planning to give both contests a try. I'll see what I think about the subject afterward.
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