Apparently I Must Have Vision

Because about 3 days after I wrote my post called If The Voice Existed for Writers what would we call it? I discovered that a brand new contest akin to The Voice (or American Idol as the case may be) is on, and geared toward Writers of fiction.

How much more can fate intervene before I finally take it seriously? A real reality contest for Writers? I mean, I have a story within the word requirements (2500-5000) that’s fiction. I’m ready to rock and roll! Holy crap, sign me up!

Well…hold on just a second Miss Quick-on-the-Draw; maybe read the rules first?

So I did. And here’s something I’m not very sure about:

“…You also grant us the right to edit the formatting and display of your Entry, and to create literary or any other types of effects in respect to your Entry without compensation or approval…”

 

Formatting and display edits I can certainly understand. The entries should all have similar structure and style in order to remain vanilla enough for the voting public to not adopt any sort of bias toward one story or another. But that bit about creating literary effects without approval? Yeah, what does that even mean?

Literary by definition means: pertaining to or of the nature of books and writings, especially those classed as literature

Now perhaps I’m just being paranoid here but to me this reads like the content could be altered without my prior approval. That’s not okay. Anyone in law care to weigh in on this?

I kept reading and couldn’t seem to find the words ‘Author will retain all rights to their work’ anywhere in the first three-quarters of the lengthy rules. Another thing that’s a bit unsettling to say the least. But I kept reading anyway. And then I came across this:

“13. GOVERNING LAW/DISPUTES. This Contest is governed by the laws of Curaçao. As a condition of participating in this Contest, you agree, to the extent permitted by law, that any and all disputes which cannot be resolved between the parties, and causes of action arising out of or in connection with this Contest, will be resolved individually, without resort to any form of class action, exclusively before a court located in Curaçao.”

 

Wait, what? Curaçao? Where the hell is that?

So I did a little digging and it turns out it is an island located off the coast of Venezuela and is a Netherland/Dutch nation. And Hofstra Law School has an entire course dedicated to the study of International Law in this nation.

Impressive. But equally unsettling.

I’m not entirely sure how comfortable I am entering a contest where the governing law over the subsequent use of my intellectual property is located in International waters. I would have a leg to stand on if the contest originated out of the United States because that’s where I’m from and where my copyright is held. But I know nothing about anything related to the laws in Curaçao and frankly I don’t want to have to earn a degree from Hofstra just to find out if I’d be protected should someone steal my work and make millions of dollars or defame my name, etc.

It does make me a little sad because I felt as if I almost dreamed this contest into life after pretty much asking for it to be hand delivered to my door. But you know how they say to be careful what you wish for? I never understood just why you should protect yourself from those wishes or why it's important to clarify the specifics of the wish in question until this very moment.

Hopefully this shows I’m smarter than I look and not that I blew a golden opportunity at fame and fortune ($5000 grand prize). But like I always say, I live with no regrets so unless my lawyer type friends weigh in and tell me I shouldn’t be afraid, I think this is one contest I’m letting pass by after all.

Unburied Treasure

Today’s picture -- your most treasured item. This one is easy.

I didn’t even have to think about this one for more than a brief second, all I thought was ‘what would be the thing I’d grab in case of a tragic blimp accident?’ and since I always say that Matt is a person with legs who can fend for himself (and we don’t have any pets or kids), this box is the highest of priorities.

It is my storage box which contains everything I’ve ever written after age thirteen (I had a little teeny journal before that but have never been able to find it so I think I must have tossed it years ago). 

• Every scrap of paper I’ve maniacally scribbled a note onto (except the tiny Comp book in my purse).
• Journals that sit half filled. The pattern which they were written in wouldn’t make sense to anyone but me. I tend to journal by mood so depending on how I was feeling, that’s the book I reached for at the time.
• High school journals that are so over filled I sometimes had to staple half sheets of scrap paper in the back or wrote directly on the inside of the back cover.
• Folders, full of college-ruled paper containing handwritten nouns, adjectives and verbiage.
• And yes, that is the final, edited copy of my first ever completed manuscript on the left side in the binder clip.

I know you’ll all think I’m nuts (well more than you already do perhaps) but I used to drive around with this box of writing in my trunk. That’s right. Okay, the work was in a different box back then but, yes, it sat in my trunk at all times.

When I was nineteen and living on my own for the first time, my house was a party house.  Crazy numbers of people came over on any given night to toss a few back and get loud and obnoxious. I was NOT about to let these things that came out of my imagination, things that could potentially be expanded on and crafted into fully edited, marketable writing, become a pile of beer soaked goo.

Or worse yet, be read by someone.

So this half full box of my words went everywhere with me instead. Obviously I’ve picked up new journals, written on countless scrap pieces of paper and printed lots of stuff since then** and admittedly this box is about at capacity now so it looks like it’s almost time to dig out the roots and transfer to something new.

For the most part, I treat my writing like a plant. Once it becomes restrained or constricted inside something that’s too small for it to breathe, it either dies back or I move it into a new container where it can make use of the air around it to absorb all those new thoughts and ideas that feed it well. This one is about 14" W x 14" D x 8" H.  That's not high enough anymore, so it is high time for a new container.

Not a chance the new box will be anywhere but the back seat when we move.

**In addition to this box I generally keep my removable external hard drive well within the vicinity of my handwritten stuff because anything electronic I’ve typed up (like this blog post for example) is stored on that. A much more compact box to say the least!

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Catch up on anything you missed  30 Photos, 30 Days
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You Are the Chic and I am the Dude

Ten years.
My mind holds onto
Exactly what you were wearing
Where we both stood and
The laughter we shared
For the brief moment we met.
It was like forever.
The world around us, fuzzy.
The least likely thing possible,
Suddenly, plausible.

The day we met;
It was not supposed to be.
When I got laid off,
When they “broke up”,
When she tried to fix you up,
When we came up to meet you.
I remember April.
Soon after that and
Now here we are, ten years later
May of 2009.
Absolutely nothing has changed,
But everything is different.

It is the times no one else can hear.
Those, I remember.
I could share, but never
In a way that anyone else
Could ever understand
It’s complexity, reality.
I don’t need a Magic 8 Ball to tell me that.

If I could have recorded
Every moment we have known each other
I would sit and watch it over again
While I laugh or cry. Or both.
Especially when I think back on
That angry chicken farmer,
And Laquisha,
Smoking butts in the diner.

When is our anniversary again?