<p>@abcdefg1
You need a teacher to sign some forms. My school doesn’t know about this competition either; I found it by myself. You don’t need the teacher to guide you with your writing process. I just wrote my story, received my English teacher’s approval, signed forms, and submitted it.</p>
<p>Get talking everyone! Last year’s thread had a lot of discussion and this one barely has any.</p>
<p>Let’s talk about due dates. They’re about a month and a half away depending on your region. Writing is Jan. 6 and Art is Jan. 19 for me. I’m possibly submitting to both. </p>
<p>Today, I finally asked my dad if I could enter the contest. I made him look at the website and he asked me how many submissions I was planning on entering. I told him it would possibly be around 6 and he told me to make that 3. I knew I wanted at least 4, so I tried to negotiate with him. He then found out that the awards also include art, so he said if I submitted in the art category, he would let me submit 4 writings, but if I didn’t submit to the art category, I could only do 3 writings. Weird negotiating right there because essentially, he’s making himself spend more money.</p>
<p>What have all of you done so far and what do you have to do?</p>
<p>I’ve done one flash fiction piece, 2.5 out of the 3 poems I’m writing, and a little less than 1/2 of the novel category. I have to finish the poems and novel and write another story that will either be in flash fiction or short story, depending on the how the word count turns out. I plan on getting at least 4/5 of the novel done by the end of November and also finishing that one poem I only got halfway done with. Then over December, I’m going to edit everything, write that one short story, and do my art submission, whatever that will be. I don’t want to give myself unnecessary stress, so I’m planning on finishing everything by the end of January so I can take my time registering all of my stuff and sending it in. Then, during the beginning of January I’m going to finish up the rest of my novel and edit until the due date: Feb. 17.</p>
<p>@Withnail, I agree with you completely…but it’s still worth submitting. They tend to like angst, (well-written) stories about relationships, and family drama, from what I’ve seen, and I wouldn’t be wary at all about giving them pieces that could be provocative – I think they like that too. I submit at least four pieces each year and I’ve won multiple times (although only once nationally). However, I’ve found that the pieces that win are usually the ones I like the least, so go figure. (Note: my high school tends to win – we got 30% of our region’s rewards last year.)</p>
<p>I’m submitting a handful of personal essays, and I’ll finish up some poetry and maybe a short story by the deadline (which for my region is late December). Good luck, everyone!</p>