Deadlines Loom, Writers Quake

Yeah, yeah, Irish Fest is still a few weeks off. And you, not being me or one of the other full time KCIF staff peeps may think that's a good long time. Oh, my poor foolish, misguided friend. Just because your job at Irish Fest consists mostly of drinking beer and listening to Irish music doesn't mean you can coast for the next 59 days. You've got work to do, too.

Did you realize that your entry in the brand new writing contest is due before we open? August 22nd to be exact...fully a week before we swing open the big green gates. Not feeling so smug now are we? I thought not.

The theme of your prose should be "My Irish History" and it should amount to no more than 400 words, be it a poem, a short story or an essay. It can fiction or non, funny or heart-wrenching. All the other details are right here.

Now, this may surprise you but I do a little writing now and again myself. I can't win the contest of course, being as how I work here, but I think I can help you with some hints. You know, one scribe to another, as it were. Jot these down, Shakespeare.

• Use metaphors and similes. Writing judges are suckers for those puppies. Some examples: "The day was as hot as one of those girls in The Corrs. Not the fiddle player, the other one." or "The night sky was an ebony expanse of Boulevard Dry Stout, calling in sirens' tones to me to fashion a large straw out of a hollowed out telephone pole and suck it up." That's literary gold, homey.

• Toss in a few historical references. They make you sound smart and judges love smart. "As I wandered along the back roads of Sligo, where between 8000 and 7000 years ago settlements of Mesolithic hunter/gatherers once stood according to leading archaeologists, I gazed in to the Boulevard Dry Stout sky and thought of the magic night I'd spent with Andrea Corr."

• Do NOT plagiarize other people's writing. Our judges are professional wordsmiths and they will nail your ass. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness; it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity; it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness; it was the opening day of Irish Fest, and boy, were we thirsty, gazing as we were into the Dry Stout blackness of the night sky." Stuff like that will buy you a one way ticket to Disqualifiedville.

• It's the oldest adage in the writing game, but it's true: write what you know. And if you don't know it, for Jaysus sake, research. "Brian Boru, High King of Ireland, sat high atop his Hummer gazing down at Normandy Beach. The invasion was going well. Soon all of Luxembourg would fall to his mighty Irish army and he and Andrea Corr, his queen, would take their rightful place on the throne at Tara." I mean, come on. Everybody knows Brian Boru launched his invasion of Luxembourg at Omaha Beach.

• If you're going with a poem, remember: good poems rhyme. And you should do whatever is necessary to get yours to do so. Even if it means making up words. "As I walked through the streets of Bunclody, the streets became kind of more roady." Or "I once had an uncle in Glasheencoombaun. His name it was Billy O'Shlasheenboomvaun." See, like that.

Follow these simple guidelines, and frankly I don't see how you could lose this contest. So get to authoring. You've only got whatever 59 days minus a week is.

Hey, I'm a word guy not a number guy.