The M.R. Jordan Winter Writing Contest and Critique

I want to write something funny for this post but I got nothing even though I just wrote something very funny. It started at the restaurant. While I waited for my salad, I had the Super Secret Project on my brain. I was not going to write tonight. I've had about two hours sleep, which these days is a lot, so I was just going to have a dinner and head home. But as I waited for the side salad and then later for my steak, I saw my way through murky waters.

I've been working on the Super Secrete Project for years because humor is hard to write. The jokes aren't at my beck and call, so when I get a notion, I have to see it through, migraine or not.  Tonight, solving problem X transitioned to writing scene Y. I laughed and wrote and got a lot of funny looks from people in he restaurant. Because the restaurant closed, I moved to a coffee shop. I had to write it down NOW so I spent four bucks on a coup of tea. All the while my head has been pounding, pounding, pounding.

Anyway, I had planned to do a writing contest this December but with the move back to the states imminent, I forgot.


Here are the rules

Any Genre. 3500 words or fewer. I'll pick  three stories to put on my blog but there is only one cash prize of $50.00. I'll pay second and third place winners a token flat rate of $5.00 for first world rights, non-exclusive. Send your story in standard manuscript format in .doc or .docx to mrjordan274@gmail.com

Remember, I'm not a business. My blog is not a magazine. However, I do get a couple hundred visitors a month so the exposure is pretty good. Also, the contest is free. Submissions close on January 5th. You got one month to submit.

While a few typos won't hurt you, spelling and grammar will count in my final decision. If you dash of a story and don't edit it, I will be able to tell and unless it's all-caps-AMAZING you won't win.  Anyone who wants a critique the first page of the story, may ask for one but you're agreeing to let me publish the first page ( approximately 250 words) on my blog along with my critique. Other writers can leave comments as well.

If you don't specifically request a critique, you won't get one. I'd never publishing anything of another writer's without expressed permission. I just thought some critique might be fun. If I get a lot of requests for critiques, I'll select stories at random. If I don't get any requests there won't be any critiques.  I'm good either way.

*** Reprints: If you published the story on your blog, I don't really consider that published unless  you've got like 10,000 reprints. But if you sold the story to

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