Writers & Illustrators of the Future Blog: We just finished our first month PLUS Sound Advice from Octavia Butler

Well, theWriters & Illustrators of the Future blog just completed its first full month. In February, we had 1,489 visitors. So this is a start. Nowhere near where we need to be, but --- a start. Do let others know that this blog exists and that this is where everyone should go to find out about both contests, its judges and winners.

NEW SECTION

As I recently mentioned, I am starting a new feature in the blog of including a quote from our judges from essays they have provided over the years. These are the hot tips consisting of hard-won advice that they found instrumental to their success that will be included at least once a week.

HOT TIPS AND SOUND ADVICE

I met Octavia Butler a few years ago when the workshops and Awards Ceremony went to Seattle. We had lunch at her favorite Tai restaurant and we talked about a lot of things. She had recently agreed to become a judge for the Writers Contest, but due to mounting health problems, this was something that never fully materialized. She very much agreed with and appreciated what the Contest stood for. In fact, it was several years earlier, in 1989, that she had written an essay for Writers of the Future Volume IX - Furor Scribendi. It is from this essay that I have quoted the first of six rules she gives:

"Writing for publication may be both the easiest and the hardest thing you'll ever do. Learning the rules--if they can be called rules--is the easy part. Following them, turning them into regular habits, is an ongoing struggle. Here are the rules:

"1. Read. Read about the art, the craft, and the business of writing. Read the kind of work you'd like to write. Read good literature and bad, fiction and fact. Read every day and learn from what you read. If you commute to work or if you spend part of your day doing relatively mindless work, listen to book tapes. If your library doesn't have a good supply of complete books on audio tape, companies like Recorded Books, Books on Tape, Brilliance Corporation, and the Literate Ear will rent or sell you a wide selection of such books for your pleasure and continuing education. These provide a painless way to ponder use of language, the sounds of words, conflict, characterization, plotting, and the multitudes of ideas you can find in history, biography, medicine, the sciences, etc."

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