Contests, Contests!

Well, I've had an interesting yet exciting past few months, to say the least. I saw two of my favorite musical acts in concert this summer -- Coldplay and Tori Amos. They rocked, of course. And, after trying to juggle two children with completely separate needs at different schools with a part-time editing job for the past year, I made the decision to return to freelancing from home. It wasn't an easy choice to make. The steady paycheck from that job definitely helped our household, but I felt too torn to help my kids in every way I can while they are still young. So, I've been freelancing since about mid-August.
I had about two weeks where I was sending out queries like crazy and had no assignments coming in where I started to panic again . . . but then work starting coming into my inbox. The lead times in between paychecks has been a little hard to juggle, but I'm getting there. I entered the 78th Annual Writer's Digest Writing Competition back in May, and I found out a few months ago that I won first place in the feature magazine article category! One of the prizes was a manuscript critique from editors and/or Writer's Digest board members, so I've been polishing up that non-fiction book proposal I put together this past summer in the hopes that I can get some valuable feedback on the topic, or better yet, a future book deal!
Going back to freelancing has given me precious time to work on some other projects I didn't have time to work on while working at an office 20 hours a week. I submitted a 750-word short story to the WOW! Women on Writing Summer Flash Fiction Contest and found out I made it through the first round of judging (beating out roughly 200 entries). I haven't written fiction in years, quite honestly. I came across the short story on my hard drive and honestly don't remember writing it, but the characters were so obviously based on me and an ex-boyfriend that I know I did write it at some point, probably when I my son was still an infant and I was delirious from lack of sleep. It gives me hope that I have a future writing fiction, as I've slowly returned to working on my novel-in-progress.
So it will be exciting to hear about the results from that contest this month. I'm afraid all this exciting news has left me a little obsessed with entering writing contests now. I never realized how many of them were out there, and the publishing and monetary rewards they offer.
I'm hereby declaring this coming week "Contest Week" over at Renee's Pages. I will post links to a different writing contest every day this week. Check back daily and join in on the fun!