NEW USERS! INTRODUCE YOURSELVES!

Hi. My real name is Xao ("chow"), but I go by Anna. I write under the pen name, Anna X.

I've been creating stories in my head for as long as I can remember. I honestly believe that good stories write themselves. You can always start writing a story, but the characters tell their own tales and if you're lucky enough, you get to merely be in the audience watching everything unfold. 

I remember finding out about WOTF some 20 years ago and wanting to enter. I never got to do that, but there's a time and place for everything. I just finished writing a short story I'm proud of and am looking forward to finally entering this quarter for the first time.

I write a lot of different genres. I like romance, fantasy, dark fantasy, science fiction, mysteries, thrillers, horror, paranormal, and supernatural. My big dream isn't to become famous or well known. My big dream is to share all the stories I know and love with the world. That's my ultimate goal.

I'm pretty excited to be here. Thank you for the opportunity to share my creativity with all of you.

Welcome to the forum Xao. After waiting all this time to enter I hope your efforts are rewarding. Best of results for you.  

@annax Welcome Xao. 

@annax Welcome!

Thank you, everyone! I just submitted. Yay! 

Welcome Anna X! 

@annax Welcome to the Forum!

It sounds like you have a diverse genre palette you paint from. That will serve you well. Don’t forget to take the WotF Online Workshop and learn from the best!

All the best to you and your writing!

Wulf Moon

Hi, my name is Favour
Am new and am going for the Q4,but don't know how to register and submit for the competition can u help me out. Tks

Posted by: @natasha123fav

Hi, my name is Favour
Am new and am going for the Q4,but don't know how to register and submit for the competition can u help me out. Tks

Welcome Favour to the Writers of the Future Forum!

You will need to go to https://writersofthefuture.com/enter-writer-contest/ page on the site. This is also on the sidebar menu under "Enter Writer Contest"

Every quarter the link to the current submission portal is there. 

Once in the submission portal you will need to create an account and you can follow all of the steps to submit. Note that the submission portal is a separate account than this Forum and online Workshop.

Good luck!

@natasha123fav Hi Favour!

Welcome!

I just joined a few days ago and everyone is very helpful and awesome.

Make sure you check out the other parts of the forum. There’s a critique part if you’d like some feedback on your writing. I’m going through the workshop part right now and there’s some amazing advice from famous authors and judges of the contest. Wulf Moon has an incredible secrets workshop where he gives a zillion amazing pointers on how to be a better writer. There’s some really cool stuff to help you out!

Let me know if I can help! Good luck with Q4 and keep submitting to all the quarters!

Welcome to the forum Favour. AnnaX's advice is spot on. Cruise the threads and post along with the rest of us.

Hello everyone! I'm Dugan.

To keep my mind off incoming Q2 results I decided to introduce myself. I stumbled upon this contest while researching for college scholarship opportunities and submitted in this year's Q2 and Q3. I've always enjoyed reading sci fi/fantasy (Ender's Game and the Redwall series were the books that first drew me in) and have been working on a YA fantasy for the past few years. 

My goal is to submit every quarter. Not sure if that'll conflict too much with my novel writing and university classes. Maybe some of you have tips on how to balance schoolwork/work with writing. 

This forum seems to be incredibly helpful for informing newcomers like me about the contest, so I'm glad to be joining.

Best of luck!

Dugan

@wildkardde 

Welcome! This forum is a great place to learn and grow as a writer. Be sure to check out the free online workshop and Wulf Moon’s Super Secrets thread. Jump in, join the conversation and have fun!

@wildkardde Welcome! What helps me to balance my work and writing is to set myself reasonable goals that I know I can keep or surpass regularly. Trying to make myself write three thousand or more words in a day while working or going to school full time was always a recipe for writing nothing for me. Making smaller goals that are still ambitious helps keep me from running into the sunk cost fallacy of "I won't hit my huge goal, so I won't write anything at all." Since I started doing this, I've gotten a lot more written than when my word count goals were bigger!

YMMV, of course.

@wildkardde 

Welcome!

I understand your dilemma. I assume you’re on campus, so I guess every little time for writing works.

While I was writing my entry for WotF, once I left the computer, I literally typed it in my phone on the notes. Then I copied all and pasted it into an email I sent myself so when I got back on the computer, I’ll have all the words there without missing a beat. So maybe if you have 30 minutes, write it in an email to yourself on the phone. Little by little, all those words in short 15 or 30 minute increments will add up. 

Good luck! 

@ajschultz6 @annax Thanks for the advice!

@wildkardde Welcome to the Forum!

You have a great goal! Submitting every quarter is the best way to win. You can’t win if you aren’t in. I also recommend writing fresh, original stories, because we learn and grow as writers each time we write. Don’t miss the WotF Online Workshop, because you can bet your competition sure took that! ? Write smart, write hard, submit a story every Q. Forumites will cheer you on, because that’s who we are!

Best of success and welcome aboard!

Wulf Moon

Hi there! My pen name is RC and I'm thrilled to join the Writers of the Future community! Although writing is a common hobby of mine, I've never thought of publishing work or entering contests too much until recently. Through joining Writers of the Future, I am hoping to connect with others and perfect my writing skills as I hopefully enter as many quarters as possible. 

Being a new member, I would appreciate any tips or comments on improving my experience here. It would be great to hear from other members of the community, so please feel free to say hello! 

Hello (@rc). Now that you've joined us be sure to take an extended tour of all the sites. You definitely want to take advantage of the online writing course. It's free and very informative.

@annax, good luck with your Q4! It's great to see new people coming in, and it sounds like you have a million and one stories to tell--which is good news for the Contest, unless you happen to win at your first attempt of course (which has been known to happen...)

Dugan - @wildkardde - welcome also! I struggled sometimes with balancing work and writing. I tried a lot of other people's advice (write in the morning, write on certain days, write consistently in the evening), but ended up needing to find my own balances, which can be pretty erratic. My work, a bit like schoolwork, is not something that is guaranteed to always be the same intensity or putting the same demands on me, so what I've learned works the best is simply to be forgiving of my own efforts to write. I learned that what works well for me is to take some time early in the day to think about what I'd like to write, and then by the time I sit down to write in the evening, I have very clear ideas. But if I can't write then, because work or other life demands won't permit it, I don't beat myself up about it--I just allow myself to let it go, and try again the next time. So long as you're finding some way to write, though, that's the main thing.

Lastly, @rc -- one more welcome as I'm catching up on this thread just a little! For the Community, I'd say it's down to you! I'm sure that there are plenty of folks who get things out of the Forum by simply lurking and reading, while others engage, ask questions, and exchange stories for critiques. Either one of those would work, and I think it's really down to the individual how best they can connect with it. (That being said, if you're willing, I'd recommend trying to exchange at least a few stories for critiques, as experienced members may be able to help you with pointers about things that are known to work well, or be downright disqualifying for a Contest entry).

Posted by: @rc

Hi there! My pen name is RC and I'm thrilled to join the Writers of the Future community! Although writing is a common hobby of mine, I've never thought of publishing work or entering contests too much until recently. Through joining Writers of the Future, I am hoping to connect with others and perfect my writing skills as I hopefully enter as many quarters as possible. 

 

Being a new member, I would appreciate any tips or comments on improving my experience here. It would be great to hear from other members of the community, so please feel free to say hello! 

Hi Raaghav! 

It’s great to have you here! Just check out the forums and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask! We’re all here to help! 

Sincerely,

Anna

Posted by: @doctorjest

@annax, good luck with your Q4! It's great to see new people coming in, and it sounds like you have a million and one stories to tell--which is good news for the Contest, unless you happen to win at your first attempt of course (which has been known to happen...)

Thank you for the well wishes! ?

I don’t think I’d win on my first try. I made a good attempt for my first short story ever written though. I just hope to do well, that’s all. ?

Who has won on their first try? That’s pretty cool. Congrats to them! ?

Posted by: @annax

Thank you for the well wishes! ?

I don’t think I’d win on my first try. I made a good attempt for my first short story ever written though. I just hope to do well, that’s all. ?

Who has won on their first try? That’s pretty cool. Congrats to them! ?

Well, I'm fairly sure that Patrick Rothfuss won it at his first try, with an excerpt from his Kingkiller series. I think David Farland won at the first attempt also, long before he was judging the contest himself, but I'm sure they're not the only ones.

Hi guys, You can call me VR

How long have I been writing?
I used to write a novel when I was 13 to 16 (when i was 16 i read the 13 part and dropped for good). Apart from that i had a brief romance with writing when i was bit older… but it was just of a a one month stand. Recently I realised that writing in english is way more fun than my native language—polish—(which makes a lot more sense in the light of of 3.1 from the WOTF online workshop) and I am addicted ever since. 

 Why I write? 
It might sound silly, but I want to… SAVE THE WORLD!
After trying my luck with few startups with positive global impact i think the only way to save this world is to help create wise people, to the best of my craft.
(Yes, i have read brave new world, I remember this island thing, but even if it is based on true story, it doesn’t mean it would still be true in modern day)
And, while it might not be the most popular thing to do, I don’t want to go political, but simply build bridges of understanding between people. Seems like no matter the country, we all have this problem.

I write Sci-fi mostly, but I also use fantastical elements to explore topics loosely bound to material plane.

So… nice to meet you all I hope I will learn much in here,
VR

@vrlass Welcome VR! You've come to the right place to jump in and get back to writing. I'm glad to see that you've already taken the online workshop, that's a fantastic place to start. I also recommend reading through Wulf Moon's Super Secrets Workshop thread. There's a wealth of knowledge there that will really help mold your stories. Otherwise, jump in, read through some threads, join the conversation, and by all means...ask questions. We have a really friendly group here on the Forum. Glad you found us!

@vrlass Hi VR! Welcome! ? I hope you like it here. Read everything and listen to some of the podcast interviews they’re pretty fun.

Secretly, I want to save the world too! ? Keep writing! Words make a difference! 

Hello everyone,

I'm a recent joiner to the forum, although I'm not new to the contest. Years ago when I first began submitting stories, I submitted my first 2 to the contest and they got rejected. I've now got 6 completed stories that I'm submitting to various markets, but I've realised that the recent 4 I didn't submit to the contest for some reason. So I've submitted one for this quarter and I have 3 more banked for the next year. I'm currently at 77 rejections across 6 stories at various markets over the years, with zero acceptances.

I'm a member of a writing group within the British Science Fiction Association so I'm getting feedback on a story every other month.

I discovered the Writers of the Future Podcast about a month ago and I've found it to be a brilliant resource. The interviews with past winners where they talk about their perseverance in submitting has helped my motivation.

I'm looking forward to learning everything I can from the forum.

My initial goal in the contest is simply to get an Honourable Mention.

PMG 

@pmg Welcome!

The WotF forum is really a great place, with lots of writers at different stages of their careers, and everyone is friendly and willing to give advice. The online workshops are really helpful too. I'm also a writing group member of BSFA and between that and seeking out and providing critiques through this forum, I believe I have really improved (although my results in the competition don't back that up ). Seeing other stories and voices and starting to think more critically about them in turn makes you do the same about your own. All part of the journey.

Best of luck with your submissions!

Welcome to the forum PMG. With your aspirations you should do well.

If you haven't already done so take the online WotF course, it's free and you'll have a fresh new story.

@joel-c-scoberg

Thanks for the welcome.

Yeah I find getting feedback and providing feedback both to be very beneficial.  

PMG