With July 31st fast approaching, I've been hard at work on my entry for this year's Fresh Ink writing contest. Remembering the last minute rush I went through to submit my entry last year, I've been determined to complete my short story in advance to give lots of room for editing and critiquing. Although I have a few things up for entry consideration this year, the piece that I find myself focusing on is a short story that I wrote while planning to enter another local contest this past March. All writers were required to create an original piece that tied in with the theme "Raptorfest," an annual springtime event where various birds of prey migrate through the Niagara Region. Entrants had to write a short story or poem from the point of view of a bird of prey on how they see their environment, and I did exactly that. My bird of choice was an unusual one, but I picked the Turkey Vulture with the intention to hopefully spark some interest.
Just shy of 1000 words, my story took place inside the typical day of a young Turkey Vulture named Acamar. I packed in as much information about the bird and its environment as I could while trying to keep it intriguing at the same time, but as you can imagine, that can be challenging to do with such a small restricted word count. Unfortunately, I didn't get the opportunity to submit my entry due to the fact that we went away for the Easter Weekend when the contest closed. However, I've been planning to submit it into Fresh Ink 2013 this month with some slight adjustments considering the fact that the word count for this contest is a minimum of 1000 words!
Unless I have a miracle brainstorm within the next week or so, I'll be submitting Acamar the Turkey Vulture into Fresh Ink 2013 by the end of this month with climbing levels of anticipation and excitement!
