Enter a contest

My list of new things to try - so far I've come up with only 30 or so - includes writing three chapters of a novel, showing my fiction writing to someone and entering a contest. Over the last couple of weeks, I did manage to write 3,500 words as a first chapter of a novel that I'd like to be sort of a middle-age version of Pride and Prejudice. It's one of my favorite novels of all times, and I've seen both the A&E production and the Keira Knightly movie probably about 15 to 20 times each. Obviously I love the story.

As for the contest, two days ago I printed out two copies of my first chapter and mailed them off to the Wyoming Arts Council with an application for the Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial writing award, which always goes to a woman. The prize is $1,000, but more than the money I day dream about someone enjoying my writing. My fiction isn't literary, but that's only a secondary goal. What I'd like is to entertain people, the way Jane Austen, Susan Isaacs, Elizabeth George and P.D. James do.

So, I can cross "enter a contest" off my 365-new-things list. I won't count this as "show someone my writing," because what I have in mind there is a one-on-one critique. And since I wrote only one chapter, I can't say I've achieved the three-chapters goal.