It's only a 1000 words, and although the deadline is 28 January, it's certainly do-able in terms of time. Although, reading the terms and conditions, if you are selected amongst the finalists you have to go down to London in early February, not only to be filmed, but also to pitch the entire plot to the panelists. So not as easy as they make it sound heh?
Not that I'm assuming that I would be one of the finalists, not by a long shot, but there's no point in entering with a defeatist attitude is there? So if I was going to enter I would have to make sure that I was prepared, just in case.
The thing I'm not sure about is how racy do they want it to be? Mills & Boon are involved, but so is Jackie Collins, and 50 Shades of Grey was mentioned quite a few times, along with the word "steamy". Mills & Boon have certainly come along in terms of steaminess in recent years, and I'm comfortable enough with that, but 50 Shades? No, I don't think that's really me, I haven't even read the books.
Can I write love scenes? Not really sure, but on the other hand, if you write romance its not a bad skill to acquire so the practice would be good.
The other thing that I'm not sure about, is do the 1000 words need to be from the beginning of the book or could it be an excerpt from anywhere? If its the beginning then, it would indeed be racy because there's not much time to introduce two characters to each other, and to the reader, and then get them into bed, or elsewhere, in the space of a mere 1000 words.
If anyone is thinking of entering how do you interpret this?
Hmm, think I may need to go back to the i-player.
I'll let you know how I get on.
Linda
