Three days in writer’s hell

Annual 3- Day Novel contest offers a ‘lost weekend’ of creativity

AS NORTH Americans
prepare for their final break
of the summer, more than
400 aspiring novelists will
be laboring harder than
they have all year.

By Evelyn Jacob
News Reporter

Their mission: to turn out a
novel in three short days.

Beginning at the stroke of mid-
right on Sept. 4. they will Jock
themselves away in basements, at-
tics, motel rooms, even tents —
not to be heard from until the wee
hours on Sept 7.

The 3-Day Novel contest is a
chance for closet writers and any-
one who has procrastinated about
writing the Great Canadian Novel
to sit down and do it.

Past winners include Toronto
playwright Tom Walmsley, Van-
couver author Marc Diamond and
North Vancouver acter Stephen E.
Miller, whose winning novel
Wastefall is about to be made inte
a motion picture.

The whole thing began 15 years
ago as a dare between Pulp Press
publisher Stephen Osborne and
Vancouver bookseller William
Hoffer.

“Some of the early Pulp people
were sitting around the bar having
a beer one night and the conversa-
tion turned to the fact that
Voltaire had written Candide in
three days,’’ explains Brian
Kaufman of Vancouver’s Anvil
Press, which took over the contest
this year.

“Neither Osborne nor Hoffer
‘knew if they could do it, but if
they could, they said they could

Woketlotd

THEY DON'T know why they do it, but each year hundreds of aspiring writers tock themselves
away in secluded rooms in the hope of turning cut the Great Canadian Novel.

surely do it better than the
other.”

At the end of three days neither
Osborne nor Hoffer had come up
with anything resembling a novel.
But word of the contest had
spread through the publishing
community, and people started
asking if it would happen again
the next year.

“It was more of a joke than
anything,’’ said Kaufman, who

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has- entered the contest twice
himself.

_ The 3-Pay Novel cantest has
since turned into an international
competition attracting upwards of
400 entrants annually from as far
away as Japan and Europe.

“*You just say, ‘I’m going to do
it. | don’t care if I win,’ ”’ says
Miller, who has taken a run at the
prize twice and is considering
entering again this year.

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Every writer should experience
the “lost weekend,’’ he says. ‘It's

“September, 18492.

a wonderful, liberating

experience,

freeing,

“E's great because you don’t.

have time to judge your work.
You're writing so fast — and
you've got a week after the
weekend to fix any mistakes —
that you don't have to worry
about whether you've gor the
commas in the right place. |
recommend everyone do it just as
an exercise.””

The year he won, Miller spent
tyree days holed up in the base-
ment of his Deep Cove home,
making sure he came up for air
frequently.

“That year 1 had two dinner
parties.’ he recalls in his gentle
southern twang. “I'd do a chapter
and come up and have a course
and then go back down again."

Does he have any tips for those
taking the plunge this year?

“} think dinner parties are
great. It’s very hard to do it all
alone — you get punchy. It's real-
ly helpful if you can find a
caregiver “who can bring you
things like coffee.

‘*And use a computer, To try to
use anything else is sheer folly.""

Entrants work on an honor
system, pledging to do the writing

over three days and using the next.

week to edit and clean up their
work.
About 10% of those who enter

See Writers page 48 ,

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