In the month leading up to the 2014 3-Day Novel Contest, we’ll be interviewing previous winners, who will share their experiences and tactics for tackling the contest.
Today’s interview is with Meghan Austin and Shannon Mullally of Love Block.
First up is Meghan Austin:
1. Which was the moment you decided to sign up for the contest? Why?
I had just finished my MFA in writing and had been reading too much French literary theory and decided to sign up as a sort of artistic constraint, like Georges Perec when he made himself write a novel without using the letter ‘e’. At the end of three days, only my hair looked like Georges Perec’s.
2. What prep work, (if any,) did you compile before the contest?
My 25-year-old self decided that buying a carton of cigarettes and a typewriter was sufficient preparation. In retrospect, food might’ve been nice.
3. Describe the darkest crevasse you fell into during the writing period.
The writing itself was exhilarating. The part that was difficult was leaving the horrifying cave of my apartment to journey across the street for tacos, usually while talking to myself.
4. What pulled you out of it?
My co-writer. I would’ve run off and enjoyed the weather had I not had someone holding me accountable.
5. What is the most valuable thing you took away from the three days?
The most valuable thing I took away from the contest is the idea that time is the most precious thing anyone has. People are so efficient at wasting our time. I could spend 72 hours watching videos of adorable interspecies hugs between dolphins and goats, for example. Or I could spend the same amount of time running around my apartment, scaring my cats, and producing a book.
6. What are you up to now? Was the 3-Day Novel Contest a detour on your already thriving passion for writing, or did it direct you into the new love of being a novelist?
I live in New York now and have been learning French and not worrying too much about being “a productive writer.” My wife is a French writer, so I just eavesdrop on her phonecalls in order to study. Sometimes, I take workshops from my friend Bruce Benderson, an amazing American author (winner of the Prix de Flore) who is French at heart. I was in Belgium last summer and was reading the notes to my favorite book, Marguerite Yourcenar’s “Memoirs of Hadrian” and discovered that Yourcenar had spent something like 40 years on the book, abandoning it and losing all notes completely several times. So I decided my next book will take at least 30 years. The first one only took 3 days, so it still averages out to a reasonable total for both.
7. Last – and most important! – any advice for writers looking to sign-up?
After winning the contest, I was also a judge for several years, and I can vouch that there’s no one “3 Day Novel” style that judges advance over any others. I’ve read hundreds of amazing, wonderful entries, and every book at every round gets careful reads from multiple people who really care about books. There’s a certain gutsiness to pulling this contest off that you can feel in all of the entries, whether they advance to the final rounds or not. So my advice is: write the book you want to write and don’t worry too much about what the judges want.
And now for Shannon Mullally:
1. Which was the moment you decided to sign up for the contest? Why?
I was ready to sign up from the moment I heard about the contest. To write a novel in three days. Entries are read. They publish the winner. It was crazy. It was brilliant. Writing a novel was already pretty close to impossible, right? This was some kind of wooden brain puzzle for word lovers. Some kind of carrot in a box rabbit trap for writers. Tantalizing challenge within a tantalizing challenge. I was further smitten when I read the titles of previous winners. (I’m looking at you, Socket.) I cancelled my then current Labor Day plans to not write a novel until I was a novelist and signed up.
2. What prep work, (if any,) did you compile before the contest?
Honestly, I didn’t do much prep work. What I had been doing was reading a ton of detective novels. I loved that genre at the time and I still love it. So those intriguing questions of who was doing what where and why were very much in the air for me, a rather noir-ish air that took up most of the air in the small square bedroom I had in Chicago at the time, which overlooked a street where odd and perplexing things occurred in short amounts of time around the clock. Turns out I didn’t have to compile anything that wasn’t already there.
3. Describe the darkest crevasse you fell into during the writing period.
Ah, yes. I forgot how to write. It happened quickly. In fact, I never knew how to write. I had been fooling myself and now I would be exposed as the terrible writer I always knew I was to a group of lovely people in Canada. Canada! Oh the bright literary landscape of Canada, teeming with giants! How embarrassing. I got up. I looked around the room. It was intense and humorous. Everything looked very pretty and clear and surreal and amiss. I walked out into the main room of the apartment.
4. What pulled you out of it?
Stephen Hawking. I found a book by Stephen Hawking on a shelf. I hadn’t seen it before. It wasn’t mine. Stars were on the cover. I opened it and read something cool about the universe. Did Hawking purposefully write something cool about the universe or was he writing about the universe and it happened to sound cool? Of course it doesn’t matter. Inspired by Hawking’s universe, I sat back down and continued writing, sentence by sentence.
5. What is the most valuable thing you took away from the three days?
I knew after the contest was over that in my own way, I could write a novel. I could write outside of the shorter forms I was agonizing over—that was a very valuable revelation to me.
6. What are you up to now? Was the 3-Day Novel Contest a detour on your already thriving passion for writing, or did it direct you into the new love of being a novelist?
I’m an editor for a publishing company that specializes in pre-K—6 grade educational resources. What I find very exciting is that more and more teachers are looking for ways to incorporate creative writing and technology into their classrooms (as if they weren’t busy enough)! On a side note, when I taught writing, which I love to do, I often told students to enter writing contests. They are a great way to introduce your writing to the world.
The 3-Day Novel Contest was a welcome detour on my well-worn path of loving to write. The contest was like a person who hands out water to marathon runners. It was the person who gave me water to sustain me for the next stretch of “being a writer.” For me that was earning my doctorate in English and Creative Writing from the University of Denver. Fortunately, I had more than three days to accomplish that feat.
7. Last – and most important! – any advice for writers looking to sign-up?
After this contest, you will never fear a deadline again. You will laugh in the face of questions such as: can you write such and such in such and such amount of time? Hah! Of course you can. You will chuckle to yourself as you manage to utter the words, Well, I will do my best. Suckers! You wrote a novel in three days! Your manuscript will be like a bee in Time’s bonnet—forever! Who would do dare put a bee in Time’s bonnet? People who enter this contest and see it through—yep, that’s who. Did I mention the sense of exhilaration that you get when you’re done?