miss write - definitely the end

Well, I have to say I am absolutely gutted about there being no winner for the Miss Write competition. [I'm going on the idea that this is true.] After weeks of writing, submitting in May, and then months of waiting in suspense, we find out that in the judges' eyes none of the 2,300 entries were good enough to be published.

It feels as though they have cheated all of us. Surely there's plenty of talent out there, plenty of amazing writers just waiting to be found and uncovered by Cosmoblumminpolitan magazine.

But there we go. Sphere have just saved themselves £30,000, and Louise Candlish has no one to guide to fame, glory... and a complete novel.

My friends on their blogs have more or less already expressed what I feel. I just find it utterly bizarre that there is no winner, and that Cosmo have just dismissed a great competition and shoved it into a little paragraph on page 7.

Again, congrats to all of the winners/runnersup, and good luck to everybody for next year.

And more importantly, let's all look forward to Company's [hurrah!] annual short story competition, which should be airing soon.

miss write : still not over but getting there

Louise Candlish has posted her sixth and probably final blog for some time on the Cosmo website. Check it out here She mentions the winner will be picked from the shortlist of five, but the question "when?" still ponders.

Regardless of winners and losers I think it's a fantastic competition and a massive opportunity for everybody that enters. The biggest [unfortunately] magazine in the UK is giving normal people like you and me a chance to pursue their dreams and even if we don't win, they encourage us to keep trying. And that's fab.

Ooo and don't forget to enter Company's short story competition that should be coming around this quarter.

miss write : cosmo on the doormat

I was amazed by the early release and the postman waking me up at 8am for my Cosmo but also confused not to see any mention of Miss Write on the cover.

Or on the contents page.

THE WINNER HAS NOT BEEN ANNOUNCED! I repeat... the winner has not been announced in this months' issue of Cosmo. On page 270 is the advert for next months' Cosmo and it is not mentioned on there either.

However, the runners up have...

RUNNERS UP:
Six months ago we launched the search for Cosmo's Miss Write - the next star of chick lit. And here are the runners up, who win a coaching session with author Louise Candlish, £100 to spend on www.waterstones.com, a book a week for a year, plus a year's subscription to Cosmo...

Stacey Taylor, 24
From Cardiff, penned 'Sequel Opportunity', the tale of a former child actress choosing between normal life and showbiz.

Elisa McGarry, 23
From Winchester, wrote 'Playing Happy Families', about a woman's battle with fertility, infidelity and insistent old flames.

Gail Haslam, 33
From London, created Kate, the heroine of 'Miss Me?', who gave up her career for love, and wound up single and unemployed - before fighting back.

Nicola Brear, 23
From Barnsley, spun a Manhattan tale of restaurants, romance and riches in 'The Restaurant'.

Kristen Paul, 26
From Hampshire, plunged us into the scandalous world of baby modelling in 'I See You Baby'.

CONGRATS to all of the runners up, and I can't help wondering when the winner will be announced!

miss write

My subscription usually means that Cosmo lands on my doorstep a day before the release, so if anyone is interested then the winner should be typed up here some time through the day on Thursday 13th.

And finally we can put this competition to rest and move on with the next one! Although I know there are going to be a million questions in my head - why her and not me? what didn't they like about my work? it is worth sending off again?

If you're not the lucky winner and are wondering what to do, head over to Cally's blog where there is some wonderful advice on how to complete your novel, and what to do next.

another miss wrong

So I, along with about 3,200 other people, have been sitting heart in throat every time the phone rang in the past three or so months.

That's right, Cosmopolitan's Miss Write competition has had us all sat crossed-legged on our beds going over and over our first three chapters on our laptops, cross-examining every single sentence until we were almost shedding tears. 'They must love that line but I sooo shouldn't have put that in' has been running through our heads as we frantically changed paragraphs only to remember that our entry had been sent and there was nothing we could do about it.

I had the secret hope in me just like everyone else that I would be placed in the competition, even though I knew it was practically impossible because of the amount of entries they had received this year. But it's okay for me to hope, right?

Wrong, now that the winners have been told and will be announced in October's issue of the magazine, out on your news stands 14th Sept.

But it was worth it. I can't wait for the competition to come around again, so that I can feel the same excitement as I did this year, the feeling that will make me work harder and polish better to give me a bigger chance of that dream prize.