On April 1st, over 70 authors will be participating in the Rough Trade Writing Challenge (Spring Training) hosted by Keira Marcos. The challenge will run for the whole month of April and authors will start writing on the first of the month a story based upon the challenge theme, Second Chances. The theme will run the gambit from second chances at love, reunions, time travel, righting a wrong, and many more permutations to give characters a second chance at something. The stories posted will be novella length between 35,000 to 40,000 words and can be works of fanfiction or original fiction.
Authors will post their rough drafts as they are written and no editing of the works will be done during the challenge. The purpose of the Rough Trade Writing Challenge is to give authors a safe place to share works-in-progress and write on a dedicated timeline. Authors participating in the challenge can be newbies and veterans alike.
I started writing for the first time last July when I participated in the short story challenge on Rough Trade. My experience participating in the challenge and writing for the first time was extraordinary and life-changing. It was a wonderful experience and I appreciate Keira’s willingness to help authors hone their craft by hosting the challenge three times a year.
I’m ridiculously excited to be participating in April’s challenge as a writer, but also as a artist creating banner art to accompany the stories on the site. I’ve created banners in multiple fandoms and have enjoyed the opportunity to continue improving my digital art skills. The story I’ll be attempting will be a bit different from my previous work, more serious and dark in tone. Find My Love will be a London Spy/Sherlock (BBC) crossover of romantic suspense.
For more information about Rough Trade head over to the site’s homepage here.
To see full size images of the art I’ve done for the challenge head over to my digital fan art page here.
Best, The Nut.
Chestnut NOLA 