Think back over all the January firsts of your life--all those inspiring sunrises (or times when your eyes flew open at the crack of noon), all those fresh starts, those clean unsmudged calendar pages, and those post-revelry determinations that This Year Will Be Better.
What was the best New Year's resolution you ever made? Was it to complete your first novel, and by December 31 you'd typed "The End"? Was it to lose weight, and soon you were sliding your high-school jeans over your hips? To get a new job, and by June you were shaking the hiring manager's hand? Did you aim to get married, and while you didn't quite make it to the altar in 365 days, you did take some steps in the right direction toward forming a lasting, healthy relationship?
On the flip side: What was the worst New Year's resolution you ever made? Was it the year you decided to start running to get in shape, and on Day Three you fell and broke your femur and wound up in even worse shape because you couldn't exercise at all? Or the year you swore off sugar, until the day your willpower cracked and you downed an entire bag of fun-size Snickers in a single sitting? Or the year you bragged to all your coworkers that you were giving up cigarettes, only to sneak out of the office for a quick puff and find yourself locked out of the building during the Storm of the Century?
For this contest, choose your most memorable New Year's resolution and write an anecdote about it. It can be true or fictional. It can be pinpoint-accurate or the tallest of tall tales. It can make the judges laugh or cry or snort or wheeze (but it should make them feel something . . . engaging your reader is the essence of good writing.)
And if you've sworn off making New Year's resolutions forever, you could write about that decision, too.
This contest opens today, and the entry deadline is midnight on December 2. Full instructions can be found on our contest page.
Best of luck! If you have questions, send them to wnicontest@gmail.com.
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