Person of interest

I'm not sure how many weird Google searches it takes to become a person of interest, but I did think as I was writing this weekend that I needed to build a strong alibi, just in case.

The Arkansas Writers Conference has 36 contests. Since I am planning to attend the conference and I am from Arkansas, I can enter them all. I can enter them all for one low, low fee-$10.

So my plan was to increase my odds by entering as many as I could. And they span many, many kinds of writing: fiction, personal essay, poetry, humor, true crime, mystery, true adventure. And the brilliant part of my plan was to use things I've already written/blogged to come up with stuff. And I've worked, but I could only come up with 8 entries. I'm not out of time, but I'm out of gumption, so I'm mailing them all off today.

Of course, some of my stuff is better than other stuff. In fact, the 2 things I would have said "No, I don't think that's the kind of writer that I am" about turned out to be the most fun and the stuff I like the best. I wrote a poem that I like. I'm still sure I'm not a poet, but I remembered how much I used to love reading and writing poetry. Good ol' iambic pentameter.

And then...I wrote a mystery! And the biggest challenge was the word count limit of 3000 words. I had the best time. And this time, it wasn't based on any real event (thank goodness? It had to be a murder mystery.) but on a phrase I wrote to a friend. Well, that and the fact that it cost me nothing to try except a little bit of time on Sunday afternoon to find out about slow acting poisons, serial killers, and police investigations. Wiki truly has an entry for everything.

You'll vouch for me, right?