Calling all "Rising Stars"

If you are a "rising star" writer residing in Oregon, Washington, or Idaho, and between the ages of 15 and 25, Indigo has found the perfect writing competition, eager for your submissions. The Nature of Words, a premier literary organization in Central Oregon, is announcing the launch of its sixth annual literary contest with a call for submissions to the Rising Star Creative Writing Competition for young writers. Winners will be awarded at the festival, November 3-7, 2010, in Bend, Oregon, for fiction, literary nonfiction, nature essay, and poetry. All writers must fit into one of two age categories: 15-18 years of age or 19-25 years of age. Winners receive a cash prize, inclusion in an anthology, recognition at the November festival, and a scholarship to one of The Nature of Words workshops in their winning genre.

Poets may submit 2 unpublished poems; prose writers should submit one unpublished piece of no more than 3,000 words. "Unpublished" means the writing does not appear anywhere else, including Internet sources, with the exception of a blog. Entries should be accompanied by a separate cover sheet with the author's name, maling address, phone, email address, genre of the submission, and word count; this information should not be visible on the actual entry. Also, include a short bio that describes yourself and your experience and interest in writing.

Now, for actually submitting. Mail a $5 check (per entry) to The Nature of Words, P.O. Box 56, Bend, OR 97709, and note "Rising Star submission fee." Send all submissions electronically to
risingstar@thenatureofwords.org. All entries must be received no later than midnight, May 10, 2010, to be evaluated for the competition.

For more details and to double-check the submission guidelines, please visit www.thenatureofwords.org before submitting.

Editorial Tip of the Week: De-Clutter Your Writing

I know people who are pack rats, and I must admit a small tendency toward this unfortunate characteristic myself. I keep freshmen composition papers as humble reminders that I was a rampant comma abuser once. I keep sociology class notes even though I'm not a sociologist, because they may help me imagine a character someday. I keep jewelry from junior high even though the "silver" is tarnished, because I intend to polish it and wait for it to come back in style eventually. What if someday I miss these items and regret tossing them in a feverish need to clean out the closet? Clutter, clutter, clutter is all these items are. Writing gets cluttered as well, usually due to too many prepositions or prepositional phrases. These little words we think will make our sentence better are really just a nuisance to readers.



So when editing, feel free to toss out the unneeded ones; I guarantee nine and a half times out of ten, you won't miss them once they're gone. Chicago admits that prepositions can easily be overused and presents a ratio to consider when writing sentences: one preposition for every ten to fifteen words. If you find yourself overdoing it and keeping too many prepositions stuffed between your nouns and other parts of speech, here's how to re-evaluate and do some spring cleaning!



Start by cutting prepositional phrases that are just extra words. If a particular passage gives enough context, eliminating the prepositional phrases is often possible. "The most important ingredient in this recipe" can be cut down to "The most important ingredient," as long as the rest of your passage focuses on that recipe.



Here's another way to cut the prep: "A noun ending in ance, ence, ity, ment, sion, or tion, is often formed from a verb...These nouns are sometimes called "nominalizations" or "buried verbs," and they often require additional words, especially prepositions." So, when possible, use the verb form of a noun rather than adding prepositions. "During her performance of the concerto" is the same as "While she performed the concerto," but the reader isn't suffocated by prepositions.



Other times strong adverbs can replace a weaker prepositional phrase. See how "the cyclist pedaled with fury" is strengthened by adding an adverb: "the cyclist pedaled furiously." Possessive may serve this same purpose, especially when using of-phrases. "I was dismayed by the complexity of the street map" can become "The street map's complexity dismayed me."



Lastly, prepositions can almost always be limited by activity (as opposed to passivity)! Isn't that the truth? Now I'm really talking about using the active voice, which we already know is the higher road. But let's apply it to our clutter as well. Swing open that closet door, gather what you know is really junk, and throw it out! And then sit down to your writing and de-clutter each sentence with the same zeal.

Spotlighted Literary Events

Dec. 12th, 2-4 pm: Mini Sledgehammer features a 36-minute writing contest and a reading from last summer's Sledgehammer winner, Alan Dubinsky. St. Johns Booksellers, 8622 N. Lombard, Portland.

Dec. 12th, 6 pm: Stumptown Underground releases its 4th anthology, Terrible Lizards. It's all about dinosaurs, so dress to impress! Hosted by Guapo Comics & Books in Portland (6350 SE Foster Rd)

Dec. 13th, 1-4 pm: Steve Williams and Constance Hall lead "Mapping Your Childhood" workshop, helping you put the pen to paper and conjure past memories of adolescence and earlier. Cost is $25 and proceeds benefit the 100th Monkey Studio (workshop located at the 100th Monkey Studio: 110 SE 16th Ave)

Dec. 18th, 6:30 pm: Write Around Portland celebrates its 10th anniversary with the release of a fall anthology. Workshop participants will read at the First United Methodist Church in Portland (1838 SW Jefferson St). Write Around Portland creates community-building workshops for individuals living in poverty, dealing with illness, facing isolation or experiencing other barriers.

Photo Story Prompt: Building the B-25 Bomber

Write whatever comes to you--short or long, fiction or truth.


We'd love to see what you come up with! Post your story in a comment below, or e-mail it to photostory@indigoediting.com.

Feel free to comment on each other's stories and just generally enjoy the process of playing with the written word and the world it creates.

Happy writing!

Photo: "Part of the cowling for one of the motors for a B-25 bomber is assembled in the engine department of North American [Aviation, Inc.]'s Inglewood, Calif., plant" by Palmer, Alfred T., photographer.
Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Reproduction Number LC-USW36-453.

Editorial Tip of the Week: Those Ambiguous Compounds

Writers and editors alike dread one thing perhaps more than any other. Compound terms play the part of Scrooge in a writer's attempt for perfectly crafted sentences. No one wants the embarrassment of hyphenating two terms when it's unnecessary, or forgetting a hyphen when it's called for. To understand compound terms and how to approach them in writing, Chicago suggests going to the dictionary to see how terms are listed. It is also helpful to first know some definitions and the differences between compound terms.

Open compounds are spelled as two words (such as high school), hyphenated compounds are spelled with one or more hyphens (mass-produced), and closed or solid compounds are spelled as a single word (notebook). "With frequent use, open or hyphenated compounds tend to become closed (online to on-line or on line)."

Knowing when to hyphenate, if at all, can be tricky and tedious. Chicago has a rather lengthy guide to hyphenation; however, this guide illustrates general patterns, rather than hard-and-fast rules. So, with that freedom also comes lots of responsibility to choose the best type of compound term. In general, compound terms should be expressed logically and for enhanced readability, but many times hyphens are also used purely due to tradition.

No need to bog you down with a long list of rules for using and not using hyphens; the rules are not that clear. I'd rather hand you over to my trusty friends with all the answers, Webster and Chicago. But a golden rule in using hyphens is to question the readability and clarity of a compound term with or without a hyphen. If the meaning of a term is ambiguous without a hyphen (like the difference between recreation and re-creation), then don't hesitate to add the extra punctuation.