Circumstances of writers who entered the 29th Annual International 3-Day Novel Contest, compiled from responses to a random survey of entrants. The contest is a literary marathon that requires writers to produce a full-length work of fiction over the Labour Day long weekend. In 2006, 516 writers entered and almost 400 submitted manuscripts.
Locations
tree house on island hippie café in Santa Monica back seat of van in waterslide parking lot cabins in woods (8) motel rooms (6) white plastic deck chair in unfurnished apartment parents’ house, grandmother’s house, outdoors on campus during a “welcome freshmen” party, wedding reception back room of emergency call centre Distractions a search for an escaped three-legged cat Batman movie marathon on TV serious injury from soup-can lid motel room with satellite TV pregnancy scare encroaching forest fire, home invasion keyboard with sticky o key keyboard with missing c key 25-minute sneezing fit, roof cave-in computer breakdowns (19) fire alarm and building evacuation emotional breakdowns (10) relationship failures (3), eviction notice (1) solar panel falling from roof, causing power outage Complicating Factors pregnant, two days from term, mononucleosis Los Angeles heat wave, no air conditioning Hurricane Ernesto (4) writing at work (15) determination to type one-handed physical infirmity that makes sitting impossible destruction of reference books by wood rats writing with raven-feather quill and iPAQ handwriting-recognition software