Writing Competitions

In an attempt to make myself write more regularly I have made a list of writing competitions that I want to try and enter. I have marked them in my diary and try to work towards those dates. In reality, I have only managed to get a piece of writing finished and ready for one submission but at least I am putting the time in to do some research and some getting some writing done.

I am attending the Chipping Norton Literary Festival this weekend (as long as hubby is still OK with looking after our daughter for the majority of the weekend! eek!), so hoping this will inspire me to do more.

BOOK REVIEW: "The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant

This book was suggested by one of the members of my book club and the rest of us were a bit worried that it might be "overly religious" (only worried about this as the last few choices had been fairly heavy themselves), especially having seen its cover and the fact that Dinah, is mentioned in the Bible. In actuality, it wasn't all that religious. It tells Dinah's story, starting first with the story of her "mother's" and generally portraying women's lives during that time. The story itself was mostly fine but I just found that it dragged on a bit and with the constant portrayal of women's daily lives, I just got bored. Until, finally a major event happens (not going to mention it) but sprung out of nowhere and is over and done with so quickly that I actually did a double take and had to re-read the passage, thinking it might have been a dream sequence. It wasn't. It happened. And yet, not much time was devoted to it. In my opinion. Normality was resumed as the story dropped back to its particularly slow pace, which I continued to struggle to get to the end of. But I did, in the end, get to the end. I was somewhat relieved that the reading was over. Sorry. Truthfully, I don't think historical fiction is really for me, which probably doesn't help this review.