Poem of the day

A great one from Austin Smith (of whom I've never heard) via Poetry Daily (Poems.com) today:

The Capacity of Speech

It is easy to be decent to speechless things.
To hang houses for the purple martins
To nest in. To bed down the horses under
The great white wing of the year's first snow.
To ensure the dog and cat are comfortable.
To set out suet for the backyard birds.
To put the poorly-shot, wounded deer down.
To nurse its orphaned fawn until its spots
Are gone. To sweep the spider into the glass
And tap it out into the grass. To blow out
The candle and save the moth from flame.
To trap the black bear and set it free.
To throw the thrashing brook trout back.
How easy it is to be decent
To things that lack the capacity of speech,
To feed and shelter whatever will never
Beg us or thank us or make us ashamed.

Round Two!

The Blame Game made it to ROUND TWO of the New Wrinkle Publishing 2016 Writer's Contest! Woohoo!

We'll see if my four-chapter sample makes the next cut...

Noveling

Dear readers,

I know I haven't been very active on this blog, but I'm hoping someone will see this today and help me out.

I'm trying to get my first novel published in a contest hosted by New Wrinkle Publishing, which ends tonight at midnight, Pacific Standard Time; that means you have about 3 more hours to vote for my novel to be professionally edited, illustrated, published and set to an original soundtrack. What an opportunity, am I right?

Now, the winner of the contest won't necessarily have the most votes, since the publishers judge based on the merit of the story synopsis as they perceive it.

"We’ll consider every entry for the grand prize, regardless of votes … but the more votes you get, the more visible you’ll be. Plus, there’s an awesome secondary prize, specifically for the person who gets the most votes!"

The secondary prize honestly doesn't compare to publication of one's novel (a book, a t-shirt, a mug and an Amazon fire tablet), but the point is visibility.

My book (under my pen name, Cate Slader) is titled "The Blame Game." I currently have 103 votes and need to break 131 to get into the top 10 (that would also put me at the top of the YA Drama genre).

So without further ado, here's the link to vote! All you have to do is click the heart next to the number of votes for each entry.

https://www.newwrinklepublishing.com/the-blame-game/

Thanks in advance; I'll keep you posted on the results!