New Voices - Competition Fever

There's nothing like a competition to bring out any latent obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Do you find yourself regularly checking the Romance is Not Dead site and placing the entries in 'most popular' order?

Even though you haven't entered yet?

If you're still writing/polishing and have neglected your usual blog surfing we hope these links will help save you a little time - we've scoured the web for the best competition tips and news stories and while this may fuel your fever the good news is that it will run its course (although it will get worse before it gets better I'm afraid) and be out of your system by ooh, about mid-November...

Links:

Jessica Hart's top tips

Michelle Styles' summary of her competition workshop advice

Sharon Kendrick's competition post about breathing life into your characters

Jackie Ashenden's post from the rival gang, the Sassy Sisters (We love them really ;-)

And not forgetting the official New Voices site tips

Need word count clarification? Click here.

Once you've polished and uploaded (and had a stiff drink) head over to Lacey's blog and ask to be put up on her wall of fame.

Then sit back and try not to worry about whether it should have been a comma or a semi-colon in that last paragraph. It's time to let it go.

And to start obsessing about your second chapter instead ;-)

Just in case, because you never know...

If you get worried because your entry hasn't appeared on the site yet, have a read of this explanation

And for all those people concerned because of the glitches in the ratings, this comment from Bethan Hilliard is interesting - "The rating at the moment doesn't go towards who gets through to the next round and who does. Romance HQ will be choosing the Top Ten which we'll then ask you guys to vote on. So, no tactical rating possible at this stage!"

So, good luck to the afflicted is all we can say.

Minx Lorraine Wilson has uploaded her entry "In Too Deep" and is not stressing at all about it. She merely asked Lacey to pass her a paper bag because she wanted to do some, um shopping...

Okay, she's actually scared witless ;-)

Keep a look out next week for more Minx entries to come.