Win a copy of SpellCheckPlus Pro!

Members of my forum at www.mywriterscircle.com have a chance to win a year's subscription to SpellCheckPlus Pro, the professional version of the free online spelling and grammar checker SpellCheckPlus, discussed in my blog post yesterday.

To win this prize, you have to write a short verse about Mywriterscircle.com and post it in this topic. Any verse-form may be used, with an upper limit of 14 lines (so sonnets are eligible!). Use of humour is not only acceptable, it is positively encouraged. The judges will be me and Karl Moore of WCCL, and we will each pick our favourite of all the entries submitted. Each winner will then receive a prize (we have two to give away in total).

Forum members can post their entries as a reply in this forum topic, which also includes the full rules. Please do NOT post comments or queries there, though, as we want to keep it for contest entries only. Any comments or questions about the contest can be posted in this other topic.

The closing date is Friday 30 November at 12 noon GMT - so have fun, and get writing!

Attempt to Create the World's Longest Poem

Members of my forum at www.mywriterscircle.com are attempting to create the world's longest poem. The project has been spearheaded by MWC stalwarts Allie and Fordy. In her introduction, Allie says:

Our poem is a collaborative attempt to write the longest poem in the English language. By posting to the poem each contributor, while retaining copyright in his or her contribution, waives editorial rights in the context of The Longest Poem.

The poem is a journal of the lives of its writers, both personal and social. Write about your day, about what's going on around you or in the wider world, how you feel about particular social issues or, in fact, about anything at all.

The poem reflects the fact that it is a meeting of many minds and cultures, and so different styles and content are welcome, with the proviso that abusive, vulgar or otherwise objectionable material will be removed. The all-over style will be that of free verse. Any poetic device is permissible, with the exception that there should not be more than two end rhymes in any one contribution.

Anyone is welcome to contribute to this project, though you will of course need to be a forum member and logged in. If you are interested, go to the World's Longest Poem topic and read Allie's introduction. This sets out the rules (there have to be some) that contributors must follow, and the format in which contributions are to be presented. Read through the entries submitted so far, then if the mood takes you add a few lines yourself.

Finally, please note that the above link is ONLY for contributions. There is a separate thread for questions or comments about the project on the Writing Games and Challenges board - click here to go to this topic.

My Concrete Poetry Challenge

I'm looking for an example of concrete poetry for an e-book I'm currently writing, and it occurred to me that this would be a good opportunity to set a challenge for readers of this blog and members of my forum at www.mywriterscircle.com.

For those who don't know, concrete poetry is a term used to describe poems in which the shape of the poem and the way the words are arranged on the page contributes to the overall effect. If you're unsure what I mean, a quick search for "concrete poetry" on Google should turn up plenty of info (and examples) for you.

The e-book will be aimed at teachers, and I'm looking for something fairly straightforward. Humour would be a bonus, but isn't essential. Basically, what I want is a good example of concrete poetry so that teachers understand what it is and can perhaps use the poem as an example for their pupils. It should also be something I can reproduce without too much difficulty in e-book format. Obviously, all entrants will retain the copyright in their poems.

The winning poem will be used in the e-book (which I'm co-writing with the poet Simon Pitt) and full credit will be given to the author, including a link to their website if they have one. And, naturally, the winner will receive a free copy of the finished e-book as well.

The deadline is next Friday, 26 January, at 12 noon GMT. For more info, see this topic on my forum:

www.mywriterscircle.com/index.php?topic=7160.0.

The above is also the place to post your entry. Note that to enter the challenge you will need to be a registered member of the forum and logged in, but registering is free and takes only a few moments.

Incidentally, even if you're not interested in contributing a poem, I recommend clicking on the above link to view the amazing entries that have been submitted already. There are some great examples in the shape of a ship, a human being, and a beach hut. I'm starting to think maybe I should also publish a separate anthology of concrete poetry!