L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future Contest has been in operation for more than twenty years now and is one of the best ways for a writer to break into the business. Countless writers now writing professionally in the field broke in through the contest.

There are four quarterly contests each year, and one of them just ended on Friday, June 30th. I’ve been trying for the last several quarters to have a story ready to submit to the contest, but the deadlines have come and gone, and I didn’t take the time to do the necessary revisions.

I was in the same position Friday. My story only needed about two hours of work, but I also needed to be at the day job. My brother convinced me to take a half day off to work on the thing. So I did, madly typing and revising away, then printing it out, addressing the envelope, and racing to the Post Office to get it postmarked in time. I arrived five minutes before closing.

I’m a little nervous. This is the first thing I’ve submitted in quite awhile, and the newest version of this story didn’t have anyone read through it first before it got put in the mail. So, now it’s time to get back to working on the novel. Chances are, I’ll forget about the submission by the time I receive news back on its status.

The author’s name is left off the submissions to keep the judging fair. So, when I hear back on the story, I’ll report the title, as well.

In other news, I decided to stick with the same blog format and just change the colors around. Still working on getting the text the right color, but I’m liking this look better than the old site. And I promise I’ll have some galleries up soon!