Another Contest Courtesy of The Swivet

A new contest held over at literary agent Colleen Lindsay’s blog challenges you to write your query in haiku format.

That’s right: the traditional five-seven-five syllable pattern.

I have to admit I love these contests even though my attempts are pretty poor at best. But it’s still fun to take part and strech the mind muscles a bit.

The winner gets a query critique. The deadline is Friday. More details are on her blog.

Anyway, just give it a try, even if your query isn’t really ready yet (mine is just a scattering of things put together, so if by God’s sense of humor I win, I’ll really have to work at editing it). It’s a fun exercise and really interesting to read all the other entries.

Here’s my poor attempt 😛

She of two cultures
Past shadowed in secrecy
True terror unknown

Contest Time Again!

This contest comes from literary agent Rachelle Gardner. It’s very simple. Write a haiku (you know–the standard 5-7-5 syllable pattern) about the writing life or the holidays.

The deadline is Saturday, the 20th, 11:59 p.m.; finalists should be up on Monday for readers/voters.

I submitted mine, the horrible poet that I am 😛 I wrote this in ten minutes, as is probably obvious but it’s lack of poetic quality. Anyway, I decided to try in the limited amount of syllables to convey my passion for writing historical fiction, but that’s probably not that easy to see, lol. But hey I decided to try–who can turn down the oppportunity to have the first ten pages of a manuscript critiqued or a $20 Amazon gift card?

Characters find me
Voices from the distant past
Begging to be heard.

Go ahead and give it a try–it can’t hurt!