Well, I just finished up the Helium.com Challenge and posted my conclusions. Now, I’m ready to move forward and tackle a challenge with Associated Content.

Unlike Helium, I have quite a presence on AC, and because of that, a common complaint I’ve heard when I’m telling others they can do this or that is that, is that *I* can do it because I’ve been on AC for so long and have so many wonderful fans/followers and friends.

The argument appears to be a valid one, except, I know for a fact that I write on other sites, and not always under the same name or under any name at all, and my results as far as page views has a lot more to do with my writing style, my keywording and SEO understanding and my understanding of how the web works in general.

It’s my writing that gets me page views, not my name.

So, in an effort to prove that it is the writing and not the name, and also to prove that a newbie to Associated Content can indeed build up decent page views and income if they are willing to put the work into it, this challenge will be done ‘blind’.

What this means is, I have contacted AC earlier this month and received their blessing and permission to open a new account. The community team knows I’m doing the challenge, but the CMs do NOT know. You guys don’t get to know who I am until the challenge is over. That way, those following the challenge don’t artificially inflate the page views on the content by following the challenge.

I will be, for all intents and purposes, a newbie on AC. Also, since I’m using a new pen name (was the name of my most recent lead character in my novel in progress), I will be at a slight disadvantage over many new CPs in that I won’t be able to really promote my content at all, because I don’t have other sites for promotion with the pen name I’m using and if I use the Devon name sites to promote, everyone would know what the other account is!

It’s going to be interesting… I will be reporting daily, number of articles submitted, number approved, payments, page views as they are updated – the good, bad and ugly (I already told AC I’d be completely honest!)… and we’ll see how AC stands up at the end of the month!

If you followed my Helium challenge, you already know a bit what I’m doing with these challenges, and AC will be the same. The only thing different with this one is that I’m doing it on a brand new account, starting with no content, clout level 1, and seeing how far I can go in a month.

You think I can get to clout 10 in a month? I dunno, but hey, never hurt to try right?

Won’t you follow me on this journey? I’ll answer questions along the way, and I’m sure AC will be watching from the sidelines as we go through this, so post questions here on the blog. If you have a blogger account, you can follow the blog. I’ll update a little on the AC blog too.

So, ready to see how my month-long AC challenge goes?

It starts tomorrow!

Love and stuff,
Michy

PS: Wish me luck! Also, I’ll be doing a Suite101 Challenge just like this in May!

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Okay, so I got an email today with the headline that said, “CP Lawsuit Information”.

Well, being a CP (Content Producer) on AC, I thought, “Oh, no… someone finally sued them (shaking my head).”

Turns out, it was spam for an ambulance chaser attorney website wanting people to sue for their children who have Cerebral Palsy.

That just goes to show how much AC is a part of my life…lol

Stayed tuned for some exciting information about a month-long AC Challenge I’ve been approved to do! I’ll be putting the post up on the other blog, but I’ll come over here and update a bit too.

More to come – the challenge starts tomorrow!

Love and stuff,
Michy

It’s been an interesting month and I’m very happy to report that I’m officially calling my unofficial Helium.com challenge over. The month technically ended, per Helium’s terms, on the 24th for upfront payments. They do this so they can close the month out and finalize everything before the first, when they have to credit the account. Makes perfect sense to me, but to someone new to Helium, it’s important to note that the first month you sign up won’t be a full month, but rather from the time you sign up until the 24th. Thereafter, you’ll get a full month, it’ll just be from the 25th through the 24th.

I’ve managed to explore most of the sides of Helium available except the Citizen Journalism Awards area. I think their affiliations with these agencies and news groups is fantastic. Unfortunately for me, I’m not a journalist. I like to write, and on rare occasion, I’ll feel passionately about something and will write up an op/ed piece, but in the end, I don’t pay much attention to world news, and just don’t dig journalism or journalistic writing styles.

So let’s look at my final stats for my month-long challenge on Helium.

I started with two writing stars. I ended with three writing stars.

I started with one rating star. I ended with four. I could have had five, but I got lazy. Five would have given me an extra bonus at the end of the month. My bad.

I started with 72 articles and finished with 137. That’s 65 new articles this month.

I could have written more if I had worked this full time, but I only averaged about 4 hours per day on Helium. I had my other obligations to contend with. If I was able to just do Helium as a job, and say get in 6-8 hours of writing for Helium per day, it’s reasonable to assume I could have done at least 130 articles, or about double what I did.

Of the 65 articles I wrote, 63 of them were for upfront payment. At the current star rate, that is $94.50 in upfront payments. I wrote 11 articles that were to empty titles, so that is another $11 bucks. Then I received as of this morning, $30.03 in revenue share for page views. I’ve been getting about a buck per day there, so we’ll add another dollar to that.

That’s $135.53. Additionally, I’ll get the end of month revenue share bonus too, probably tomorrow. Typically, it’s been between 2-3 bucks for the 72 articles I had, so I’m going to just give Helium the benefit of the doubt here, and say it’ll be another $10 to add to that.

That’s a total for the month of $145.53.
(see update here on totals – the bonus was different than expected and I sold a marketplace article)

Now, let’s look at how much time I spent on Helium this month. Including rating time, writing time, and writing and researching marketplace articles, but excluding the time I spent on the betaville zones, I spent about 68 hours on the challenge.

That’s $2.14 per hour.

Not so hot. Working full time at an average of 40 hours per week, that would be $85.60 per week, and about $342.40 per month. (See updated numbers here)

Things I learned:

• Contests on Helium suck and/or might be ‘cheatable’
• Marketplace articles can pay good money, but competition is fierce
• Rating is important for getting ratings – that is, the more you rate the more you get rated
• If you don’t get your article in the top 3-5 rankings, it won’t show up on Google
• If your article doesn’t show up on Google, it’s not going to make money
• Helium doesn’t have good Google Juice
• The RSS feeds on Helium are poorly constructed
• Promoting your content properly on Helium does increase revenue a lot

My final conclusion is this: Helium is not going to replace your income. You won’t make a ‘job’ out of Helium.

Helium’s Marketplace

However, the Marketplace at Helium still has a lot of potential, and if you write good content and get accepted by the Marketplace publishers, you can make a lot of money through the marketplace.

However, it’s important to note that I make a lot more writing for print publications or finding markets on my own. For a new freelance writer, though, Helium’s marketplace is a chance to spread your wings into higher-paying markets. I HIGHLY recommend trying Helium’s marketplace. However, Helium does require you to gain a writing star to write to the best titles on the marketplace or to sell an article in the marketplace to a lower payer in order to get some of the higher articles. Since the Premier Marketplace articles have a lot fewer writers writing to them, the competition isn’t as fierce.

I have thought Helium’s Marketplace was a great idea from the beginning, and this challenge has reinforced that opinion.

Article Writing on Helium

As for regular article writing on Helium, my highest paying article there is not even 10 bucks total revenue. I have several articles that have been on Helium for quite some time, but they have earned less than a buck or two at most. Some have been on the site for over a year and have earned less than a dollar. Not good Google-juice.

The upfront payments and the empty title bonus were very good moves for Helium. Unfortunately, they aren’t quite high enough to capture a serious freelance writer. However, for a writer who has content and takes a few minutes to rewrite it and tweak it a bit for the web, putting up already written content or putting up content that hasn’t been sold to another buyer, it’s a chance for a freelancer to at least make a few bucks for work they’ve already done.

Also, if there is a topic you are very familiar with that you can write up quickly because you’re an expert in that field, it’s likely you’ll get more in upfront and bonuses from Helium than you would putting it up on a normal monetized blog.

Debates on Helium

I like the debates on Helium. I don’t know why. I love to debate, as long as no one is throwing names and attacking the person behind the debate. Helium’s platform eliminates the ability to argue. It’s a chance to state your opinion and back it by facts and make some money for doing so. I will continue to write for the debates as I find ones that interest me. Where else are you actually going to get to write for or against something, address others issues and opinions and get paid for it too?

Of course, debates don’t pay upfront, from what I’ve read, but that’s okay too. It’s more… fun. And also, it’s good practice too. You can write your opinion, do it professionally, and use the rankings to judge how your op/ed writing is viewed by others. I think there’s a lot to be learned about how your opinion pieces in the debates on Helium are ranked.

Contests on Helium

I don’t recommend them. I won’t get into specifics about what’s wrong with the contests, since I can’t ‘prove’ anything. It’s mostly supposition on my part, but others on Helium have written me in email and a few commented here on the blog and have agreed with my assessment of the contests too. It’s not hard to look at them and see there is some… uhm… cheating going on.

My writing score dropped drastically enough due to contest ratings that I lost a
s
tar and it took almost a week to get it back. Now that the contests are over, my rankings on those articles are coming back up now. I won’t ever enter another one of their contests again.

Betaville Zones on Helium

I don’t know whether or not these Betaville Zones are working properly. It asked for my Google Adsense publisher ID, and I entered it and added that link on my Adsense account as a channel, but even though I KNOW there have been visitors to that zone (They’ve left comments), I have never seen a page view or impression from that URL channel on my Adsense. It’s new. I’m reserving judgment.

If it works like it should, these zones are going to be awesome and for someone who manages one right, I think there’s the potential to earn a nice little stream of side income.

Helium Title Suggestions

I suggested 12 new titles while doing this challenge using the title suggestion tool. Four of them were rejected. Of the four rejected, I resubmitted one and wrote to it. I did not resubmit the others. One I emailed back about because they changed the title I wrote to something that was just… wrong. Four titles were accepted and I wrote to them. So out of twelve suggested titles, I got responses for eight of them. Four title suggestions have not been approved or rejected – no response at all. The one I wrote back about has received no response.

Helium Communication

The staff at Helium seems truly communicative and responsive to issues. I appreciate that from them. I do think they have some site members doing things like approving titles, checking on flagged articles, etc. I did report a plagiarized article to Helium, and within a couple of days, they removed the article. I like that type of policing the site.

I don’t like that the Helium inter-email system sends messages to people on the site from your personal email address. There are more articles I would flag and/or leave comments for, but I do not want to give out my email address to random writers I do not know. If there were an inter-site messaging system, I’d be more than willing to flag or comment on more articles.

Helium Strengths:

• Immediate publication – instant gratification
• Existing titles and article ideas
• Little something for everyone
• Lots of variety on the site in one location
• Good communication with staff
• Near real-time revenue/earnings reporting

Helium Weaknesses:

• Low pay and minimal Google -juice
• Monthly payments instead of daily or weekly
• Minimum payout threshold a little high
• Rankings are essentially unpaid work
• Multiple articles on the same topic, hurting Google-juice even further
• No page view reporting

Final Analysis

Helium is moving, slowly, in the right direction. The fact they are paying so low at this point does detract from the site on a whole. Helium is not currently paying enough money, marketplace included, to attract truly serious freelance long-term writers. However, for a stay-at-home mom wanting some extra money while having fun… for a student in college honing their writing skills and wanting some extra cash… for someone seeking a little extra play income or some income to help extend a household budget while having fun and not getting too serious, Helium is an excellent choice.

I think that the fact Helium IS moving so slowly is going to be a plus in the end. It allows Helium to integrate things for the long-term. They are going to be around for a long time. I do think Helium is doing some great stuff, and in the two years I’ve been with them, even though I haven’t been active consistently, I have seen much growth and changes with Helium and every one of them has been positive.

I think that as Helium continues to grow and develop, we are going to see more and more changes to Helium, and I believe the new changes will all be pluses to the site and result in additional revenue possibilities for the writers.

Will I Stay at Helium?

Absolutely. If I have an article I want to write, but no market for it, Helium is a good place to get it up. Sometimes, I can shell out a 15-minute article on a topic I find a title for on Helium because it’s something I know and feel strongly about. It’s better than most people are going to make with Adsense, and someone else handled all the design and such. I will still watch the marketplace several times per week and will definitely write to the marketplace again.

I will also be putting up more creative writing things on Helium. I find that a strong point for Helium, that they do have a really good group of creative writers, and there’s hardly any place on the web to get paid a little bit for creative writings without having to query and wait forever. The rankings can help folks determine in small part how the public is judging their writing, which can help tweak fiction and poetry writer’s skills.

Plus, multiple streams of residual passive income is the wave of the future, and people who are able to get articles up on sites like this now while they are still developing and growing will experience the growth and revenue earnings potentials of the site as they grow with it.

While Helium is NOT viable for most experience freelance writers, they aren’t a bad place for fledgling writers to get their feet wet and practice honing their skill. I do think Helium is going places and I do think they are a site to watch closely. Every new thing they roll out has been positive in my opinion, and I have a feeling from what I’ve heard that there is more coming.

Is it good for full-time income? Nope. Does it have potential and should you watch it? Absolutely.

Any questions?

Love and stuff,
Michy

PS: Got approval from AC to open a brand new account and do a month-long AC challenge. I’ll get a blog post up about it today and the challenge will start TOMORROW! More to come!
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This was a very hard competition to judge. The three winners are all very close to each other in the judge’s opinion. The first place story stood out for the fact is was so well-written both grammatically and stylistically, not to mention it’s a good story.

The other two had some minor grammar weaknesses, but the stories were solid.

It was super duper close, particularly with the last two stories. The first place story was… well, technical well done! But….

Before we announce the winners, I want to say I am going to be making an offer to Nancy for her Numbers Parable. I don’t know where I’m going to use it yet, but I loooove that story. The ONLY reason it didn’t win was that the judges felt it didn’t properly incorporate the ‘theme’ for this contest, which was: The Past. Though it was set in the past, that’s about all that encompassed the theme. I simply loved it though! I laughed through the whole thing! Because of this, Nancy will receive an honorable mention, free copy of the anthology and I’ll be making an offer to purchase this story for another book we’ll be doing in the future. Congrats, Nancy and good job!

Now, for the winners of the first anthology short story contest of 2009:

Ready?

Really ready?

Should I tell you?

Okay.

Here:

First Place: #101 – Second Chance – Lindsay Maddox

Second Place – #14 – Ex Post Facto – Thor Gunnin

Third Place – #39 – We’ve been calling it: Jeremy’s Haven) Jo Brielyn

Congratulations all of you. These were excellent stories by excellent writers!

Those of you not selected as winner, keep in mind that as finalists, you are in the pool of stories that will be chosen if we need additional stories at the end of the anthology quarter. There is still a chance you will get chosen!

short crits on all the stories not selected will be going out before the end of the week.

Congratulations everyone!

Don’t forget, we have two themes running right now: The Present & The Future!

Love and stuff,
Michy
=================================================================

I’ve been doing a Helium.com month-long challenge and while I’m not completely ready to reveal my final conclusions, I did want to share with the AC folks who read my blog here some things I discovered where the money is concerned on AC vs. Helium.

Helium

Twelve articles that earned nothing this month.

Five articles that have earned NOTHING.

Highest grossing article is $9.36.

Second highest grossing is 8.36.

Both of the highest and second highest grossing articles are more than a year old on Helium.

My total lifetime earnings, if I include what I anticipate getting on this month, will be: 445 bucks (This includes marketplace articles sold). I have 137 articles up.
………..

Associated Content

Every article has earned this month.

Every article has earned something for its lifetime, even if it’s just a few days old.

One of my highest grossing regular articles has made $77.26 (That same article on Helium, exact same article, has made .04 cents.)

Another AC article that has garnered $53.28 in both upfronts and performance bonuses on Helium, the exact same article, has only managed to bring me a whopping .08 cents.

Another article on AC has brought in $84.83.

These are recent articles, all within the last year.

$5229 bucks. I have 345 articles up.

………

It’s pretty clear to me that there is a huge divide for Helium vs. Associated Content in earning potential.

Helium averages: $3.25 per article

AC averages: $15.16 per article

Shrug.
—–

SUITE101

Now, let’s look at Suite101. They don’t pay upfront, but… I have only 11 articles up with them before I quit. All of those articles are over a year old. Total average per article there? $17.25

Suite101 has Google juice deluxe. Now, while they are, hands down the highest payer of them all on average, you don’t get any upfronts with them, and they are quite particular about what they will accept and what they won’t.

I stopped writing for them because it began to feel too much like a ‘job’, as though I were working for someone else and not a self-employed contractor, and I ended up in the hospital and did not meet their minimum requirements during that time. They require a minimum number of articles every 90 days to stay active and some of their editors are, well, wrong sometimes, but adamantly defend their wrongness.

So, given straight money, Suite101 is the real deal. I would imagine if I hadn’t quit writing for them, that average would be higher, since older articles would get more views from new visitors.

So out of the three – the winner for time invested vs. money earned and overall earning potential seems to be Associated Content by a nose. However, I’ll be doing a challenge for AC and for Suite101 coming up this month and in May respectively, so we’ll see how that plays out!

Keep in mind one other thing about my averages on AC. I started with AC prior to the performance bonus being instated, almost two years prior. I also wrote a lot of poetry for AC for free that has lower average page views, before performance dictated upfront payments as much as it does now.

That said, someone who does their homework coming into AC now could get a much higher average than I have per article, because the Performance Bonus and the knowledge that us veteran CPs dispense to help you understand from the mistakes we made paving the road on AC.

AC has earning potential. Period.

Helium, well, not as much. I will write more on my other blog about my Helium conclusions later this week.

Love and stuff,
Michy

It just gets harder and harder for our judges to pick winners. Some of these folks just keep getting better and better.

I want to recognize someone here, Derek Odom, for having some exceptional concepts. I have truly enjoyed reading each of his story entries. Unfortunately, grammar and structure is hurting Derek a little bit – the good news on this is that grammar and structure can be learned. Writing a good concept cannot.

I plan to work individually with Derek in the near future, to help him expand his writing. I think he has talent and can go far, and I hope I can help foster that in him. As such, Derek is our Honorable Mention for this contest. He will win an extra copy of the anthology for this theme set, and should we require additional stories at the end of the anthology theme set to fill in space, his will go into the pool for consideration. I am also going to provide a quick edit to his story, because I want him to see where he’s falling short. If he can learn and fix those issues, I think he is a winner in the making.

Now, the finalists…

In absolutely no particular, completely random order (promise, I actually drew straws to make it random!) I give you the six finalists to the first 2009 Accentuate Writers Short Story Anthology Contest!

Drum roll………………………………….

Jo Brielyn #39

Thor Gunnin #14

Andi Caldwell #500

Lindsay Maddox #101

Nancy Gibson #99

Angel Sharum #30

Congrats to these talented writers who are moving on to the finals round of judging. I have no idea when we’ll have the results, because we are doing new judges for this round, with one common judge, so it’ll be soon, but not sure the exact day. I’m hoping before the end of the week.

To everyone who entered, remember, you receive one free copy of the book per entry so you never walk away from the contest empty handed. Everyone who enters is a winner with Accentuate! I’ll be sending out brief crits next month to each winner who did not place in the finals, so you can improve your writing and hopefully be among the finalists next time!

Our current theme for the contest is: The Present

You can see more about the Accentuate Writers Contests here. For the current themes and submission deadlines, click here.

Looking forward to an intense contest next round! Best of luck to everyone who enters.

Congratulations to the finalists!

Love and stuff,
Michy

=================================================================

Today is the day for the cut off for the upfront payments that will be credited to the account. I intend to get lots of stuff up today, so my stats should be changing before tomorrow. I did a little experiment though.

I have this article: http://www.helium.com/items/1343248-foods-that-cause-and-prevent-depression

I also have this article: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1501199/foods_that_fight_depression_eat_your.html

These are the same articles. one is on Helium and one is on AC.

Why? What is the purpose of this?

The one on Helium has earned me exactly .02 cents (plus the upfront pay, which right now is $1.50, based on my stars. That article has been up for over a week.

The one on AC, the exact same article, was put up for Display Only (no upfront pay) and in less than two days, it has earned $1.83 in performance bonuses.

$1.52 for a week VS. $1.83 for two days.

Seems pretty clear to me which place has better Google juice.

I will write up in my summary why I think Helium has some weaknesses that are hurting revenue, but right now, I only have on more day to get articles up that will count for upfront pay for the month, so I’m going to focus on that, and then I’ll come back later this week with my final recap and my opinion on Helium overall.

Until then, here’s my stats this morning:

* Writing Stars: 3 stars
* Writing score: 81.47%
* Total Articles: 136
* Total non-CW articles: 127
* % in competitive titles: 85%

* Rating Stars: 4 stars
* 90 day rating score: 76.84%
* Rates in the last 90 days: 349
* 30 day rating score: 78.09%
* Rates in the last 30 days: 210

My current revenue money is $26.89

So far, I’ve written 64 articles this month. Two of those were creative writing, so no upfront, and two of them were debates, so no upfront. So that leaves me with 60 articles upfront, and of those, 13 were empty titles.

So far, that puts me at: $ 129.95 at my current star level.

It’s not a lot of money and it was a lot of work for that much money. I could have written more though – I know that, but when I’m looking at the time invested versus the money earned, I’ll admit to getting discouraged and not writing as much as I should.

More to come….

=================================================================

Some of the members on my forum are having trouble with some AC articles indexing in Google like they should. Since I know my blog here is indexed within an hour of posting nearly every time, I thought I might give them a little boost to help their articles get ‘found’.

If you’re on my forum, go to this thread:

http://www.accentuateservices.com/xmb/viewthread.php?tid=5335

And leave your link so we can help you get it indexed on Google.

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1476348/jaundice_symptoms_and_treatment.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1453176/cancerpreventing_foods.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1478268/gold_and_gem_mining_in_georgia.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1453738/building_a_model_car_a_guide_to_get.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1444736/plastic_car_models_and_the_spare_parts.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1386372/alternative_energy_wind_and_solar_power.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1333828/great_cat_toys_keeping_cats_busy_for.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1466967/reasons_i_believe_my_marriage_is_25.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1469297/foster_parents_must_allow_themselves.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1469297/foster_parents_must_allow_themselves.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1408135/how_to_find_credit_counseling_agencies.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1456495/five_ways_to_save_money_on_a_summer.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1459264/10_things_i_love_about_stephen_fry.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1457003/how_to_download_twilights_edward_font.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1478362/researching_family_history_researching.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1438768/myspace_football_game_review_and_best.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1495587/chaconas_restaurant_in_downtown_sayre.html

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1495739/choosing_the_best_shampoos_and_conditioners.html

If you’re interested in learning whether or not your content is indexed in google or not, all you have to do is go to your AC profile page and then RIGHT click on your article’s title. Select “copy link” or “copy link location” and then go to www.google.com and click in the search box, right click and select ‘paste’ and then search.

If it shows you something in the search results, you’re indexed. If it shows you the following:

Your search – http://www.yourlinkshere.com – did not match any documents.

Then you’re not indexed.

What does being indexed mean? More page views. Why? Because the only way anyone outside of AC can find your content is to be indexed in the search engines so that when they search, your article is offered as an option.

Check your content today. If you find ones not indexed, get them up on indexed blogs, on indexed forums, or on an indexed webpage as soon as possible to get them indexed. Your performance bonus will thank you for it.

Love and stuff,
Michy

2009 Accentuate Writers Anthology of Short Stories THEMES

http://www.accentuateservices.com/AS/node/13

This is a chance for published, yet to be published, or fiction-curious writers to venture into the world of fiction writing, win a cash prize and get a publishing contract with royalties – all for a $5 entry fee. Every short story will also get a brief critique, whether it wins or not.

First, we know what’s important to you – the money, right? Okay, so here’s the prizes!

CASH PRIZES! FREE BOOKS! FREE MERCHANDISE!

January 2009 – The Past (in the judging process

February/March 2009 – The Present (Due by 11:59pm Central Time March 31, 2009)

March 2009 – The Future (Due by 11:59pm Central Time March 31, 2009)

————

April 2009 – FANTASY (Due by 11:59pm Central Time, last day of April 2009)

May 2009 – REALITY (Due by 11:59pm Central Time, last day of May 2009)

June 2009 – SCIENCE FICTION (Due by 11:59pm Central Time, last day of June 2009)

————

July 2009 – Birth (Due by 11:59pm Central Time, last day of July 2009)

August 2009 – Life (Due by 11:59pm Central Time, last day of August 2009)

September 2009 – Death (Due by 11:59pm Central Time, last day of September 2009)

————

October 2009 – First Love (Due by 11:59pm Central Time, last day of October 2009)

November 2009 – The Engagement (Due by 11:59pm Central Time, last day of October 2009)

December 2009 – The Wedding (Due by 11:59pm Central Time, last day of October 2009)

————

2009 Annual Anthology Poetry Contest – Pick One or More of the Above Themes and Submit Your Poems

$1.00 Per Poem Submitted

All poetry must be submitted on or before the last day of the quarter the theme for the poem is about. For example, if the poem is about The Past theme, the poem is due no later than March 2009. If the poem is about The Wedding, it’s due by December 2009, etc.

Soft sunlight, streaming through the window
My eyes open, then close
Then open again, partly
Fuzzy, waves of warmth and ice
Breathing
I hear breathing next to me
He’s awake.
I’m not.
Am I dreaming?

The clock says seven, eyes fluttering closed
I roll over and move closer still
I feel the pulse throb, surge
Heat, blasts of coolness
Heartbeat
I feel his arms around me
He’s awake.
I’m not.
This must be a dream.

Pulsing, throbbing, pounding and fluttering
My eyes open and roll back
Then close again, tightly
Gasping, softly echoing over groans
Clenching
I hear him moan in my ear
He’s asleep.
I’m not.
This is real.