I entered a contest ...

For the record, I adore contests - especially door prize contests. I do not usually win - but I'll stay to the end of any party, just to see if my name is drawn. I do not like silent auctions, where you bid to "win" an item ... because it isn't winning, in my book, if you have to pay for it :-)

In any case, I entered a contest today - to attend, for free, a week-long women's writer's conference @Jen Louden's #Writer's Retreat. To enter, I had to write 250 words about why I wanted to attend. It was hard to read everyone else's entries - I skimmed through them - so many worthy essays, some that annoyed me, several that inspired. It was nice to read my honest reflections on why I wanted to be chosen, though. Not chosen. Why, if I had the money and time freely available, I'd go.

The post that I used to enter listed all the academic work that I've had published (or accepted for publication) in the past ten years - and it listed the three novels and one set of memoirs I've started and put down, in favor of the scholarly writing. I want to continue my scholarship - it makes me energized when I do it (I wrote 42 pages this week on two separate projects! Yay summer!) -- but I also don't want to turn 50 (in 11 years) and not have finally finished one of the novels I've had going for decades. I love to write.

Jen's workshop is one of four I'm interested in finding ways to do in the coming decade. I'll post about the others, later. I'd go on and on now ... but my husband, who has been working overtime and has put in a 14 hour day, just called to say he's on his way home. I want to meet him at the door with cold water and a plate of pasta! Wyatt has decided (at 9:40pm no less) that he is hungry, too. So it will be a party.