What a week this has been.  A mere twelve hours since I made my last post I fell ill and I am still feeling quite sick as I write this.  You know how it is, your eyes start to hurt when you’re watching a movie and for the rest of the night there is a running joke that the film physically made my eyes hurt.  And then the jokes on me when I wake up the next day with pink eye in both eyes, a sore throat, nasal infection, migraine, fever and eventually an ear infection.

So needless to say, it’s been a wonderful week of lying around and not being productive.

The Oscars are on the horizon.  I have seen 5 of the 9 Best Picture Nominees and I will make an attempt to see a 6th.  So I am where I am usually at, just over 50%, which isn’t bad.  I think I have seen enough of them to make some informed picks.  At least I hope, I am hosting a party and I have bragging rights to win.

Since it seems a fair assessment that The Artist will win most of the awards it is nominated for, and since every other site has talked about who will win the acting Oscars the so called, big awards, aren’t even hard to predict.  It’s the technical awards that really take talent because no one talks about them.  Here are a couple of my insights if you are picking the winners.

The Artist will win Best Original Score for a couple of reasons.  Since it’s a silent film it is very dependent on music.  So if it doesn’t have the best music, than the film itself is in trouble.

I am predicting The Tree of Life is going to win Best Cinematography.  I don’t think it will win any other awards, but it deserves this one.

Also for the last few years I have had luck picking Best Sound Mixing and Sound Editing by picking the film with the most cars crashing or exploding.  The exception to this is Sound Mixing will often go to a musical or music themed movie instead of the one with a car blowing up.  Don’t believe me?  Look at the winners in the last few years.  So when a musical featuring cars exploding is made, you can bet it will win these Oscars.

Under this theory, Transformers is as far as I know (since I haven’t seen all of the films) is the one with the most cars blowing up.  But I think the Academy will be edgy this year, Hugo has a train crash, and that’s much better than a car.

Though Best Costume Design tends to go to an English monarchy film, I think that the momentum of The Artist will continue and it will take this.

So now on Sunday we can see if I am right or if I have lead you astray.

So as well as being sick this week I am working on a treatment or an outline or synopsis or whatever other synonym you want to use.  There is an upcoming script competition here and I want to put my hat in the ring.  The problem I face, and the problem I knew I would face is that I am terrible at writing treatments.  The style is different than scripts and it trips me up.  I have the story all planned out and I am working on the finer details, but when I know that everything I write would sound better as a script, I get discouraged.

A treatment is like writing your script as a short story.  It is still in the present tense, but it is in paragraphs and not in proper script writing form.  And for the most part you don’t include dialogue.  When writing in paragraphs I have trouble depicting visuals.  I can write scripts through a bit of a fluke, scripts for whatever reason blends well with my writing style, paragraphs however do not.

I am often told that before writing a script you should always write a treatment, and it seems like this would be good practice.  It forces you to know your whole story before you sit down and write.  There are always small holes in your plot (and sometimes big holes) that might be overlooked until you get specific and write the whole story down.  A treatment puts it all down on the page and from there you just need to write the script.  It gives you a template to work on and a guide to follow as you write.  More importantly, if you write 5 pages and discover major plot problems that require rewrites, then you only have 5 pages to rewrite instead of 40, 50, 90 or however many pages of a script you have written before you discover your problem then you will have a lot more to rewrite.

So this will be good practice and maybe I’ll even get good at it.  Or at least I can hope.  It’s going to take a lot of drafts to get through it.  But it’s something I am going to have to push past and ignore.

Until next week, I will be working tirelessly on my treatment and I will give you a full report next week.

Wow. So last week I wrote in the Canadian Short Screenplay Blog (CSSC) about filming “Will” and how now with that being in editing/assembly mode, I can now turn some of my focus and attention to prepping “Elijah the Prophet” for a Spring shoot.

And it just hit me… what an incredible accomplishment it was to receive over $21K worth of pledges/backing and support through the KickStarter campaign. This is incredible to me and very reassuring that we are working on something so special that excited audiences are willing to essentially pay in advance to see ‘Elijah the Prophet’ come to life on the screen from the page.

Thank you.

Thank you for your trust, enthusiasm, hard earned dollars and overwhelming support for up and coming emerging talent through the medium of short film!

I’m not sure if any of you are Groupon addicts like I am? But I was inspired to write this post today when I spied a tantalizing Groupon offer for a exotic automobile rental company was offering a 57% discount on exotic car rentals (baiting me with an image of a yellow lamborghini). My mouth salivated at the thought of finding our white diamond pimped out Cadillac Escalade as our ‘God-mobile’. But the Groupon, quickly dashed my hopes, as in the fine print it spelled out the 2 door coupe convertibles it was eligible for. BUT, it did give me the inspiration to go knocking at some of the limo and high-end luxury car dealerships in town and I’m fairly certain that we will be able to get our ‘God-mobile’. And for the right price too: cheap as FREE and this will allow us to stretch these KS backing dollars even further and put almost all of it (less the KickStarter fees and backer rewards, of course… especially you who earned the limited edition Elijah bobble heads), on the screen!. So, a huge thanks to Groupon for today’s inspiration for this post and another savings in the budget! Excellent. More money to go on the screen. (Now if only I could find a weekend for shooting that ALL of mine and director James Cooper’s actors are available and in town)!!

I could worry about this and other things… but then I calm myself when I am reminded that we have a prophet in our corner!

CBC Short Film Face Off
On numerous social media outlets, the CBC has called for submissions to its 2012 Short Film Face Off. Films must be less than 12 minutes, have been completed in the past 2 yrs, and not have aired on network TV. Comedies and dramas only – no music videos or documentaries. Directors must be available for tapings at CBC Halifax from May 15 – 18 (travel & accommodation costs will be provided).

Toronto: Send a DVD copy of your film to:
Cathy Katrib-Reyes
CBC Toronto Room 4H100-D
205 Wellington Street West
Toronto, ON M5V 3G7
Deadline: March 30, 2012, 5:00 pm

Vancouver: Send 5 DVD copies of your film to:
Sheila Peacock
RPDF Producer
CBC Television
700 Hamilton Street
Vancouver, BC V6B 4A2
Deadline: March 16th, 2012, 5:00 pm.
For more information, please email: sheila.peacock@cbc.ca.

Montreal: Send a DVD copy of your film to:
Carrie Haber
CBC 1400
Boulevard Rene-Levesque
Montreal QC A 48-1 H2L 2M2
Deadline: March 30, 2012, 5:00 pm

Ottawa: Send a DVD copy of your film to CBC Ottawa by Friday, February 24, 5:00 pm.
For more information, email: ottawaproposals@cbc.ca

Edmonton: Send a DVD copy of your film to:
c/o Tamara McDonald
P.O. Box 555
Edmonton, AB T5J 2P4
Deadline: March 30, 2012, 5:00 pm

St. John’s: Send a DVD copy of your film to:
Maggie Keiley
95 University Ave./ PO Box 12010 Station A
St. John’s, NL
A1B 1Z4
Deadline: March 30, 2012, 5:00 pm

Today I have to admit a shameful secret to you.  I love bad movies. There is something magical about them that always lures me in.

I make this confession in light of the movie marathon I just had with some friends. It was a follow up to last year’s best/worst movie marathon, where you watch the most hilarious and awesomely terrible movies.  However, this year we toughened up and watched the worst/worst movies.  The movies that are just so awful they become painful to witness.  I don’t think anyone can give a clear answer as to why we did this, but it happened.

Besides the fact that even at their most painful, bad movies bring me great joy, they also offer a valuable learning experience.  It can sometimes be difficult to place what makes a great film great.  When you are watching a great film, you are absorbed into its world and the mechanics of story structure become lost behind the characters and the entrancing story.  But a bad film doesn’t hold your attention and you start to realize everything you took for granted in that great movie.

And you see the mess that can happen to your story.

So to help you avoid these problems, I have complied a list of five problems I witnessed over the weekend.  These are simply problems that can be easily avoided, but if ignored will spell death for a film.

1)  Lack of Tension
If everything goes smoothly for your protagonist, or worse, everything goes better than expected, then the audience is going to get bored.  It’s a simple fact. The audience is looking for a story, they are looking for drama, they are looking for conflict.  They are not looking for a character to win without trying.  That’s not a story, that’s not life.  If your protagonist goes through life getting everything (and more) that they wanted, than they live a boring conflict free life.  They have no struggle, no turmoil, nothing.  Which means you have no story and no audience.

2)  Nothing Happens
Something should always be happening in a scene.  It seems like an idea that doesn’t need to be stated, but when you are deep in your story, sometimes you can forget that behind all of the words on the page there is nothing really happening.  If your scene is not driving the plot forward, if it is not developing your characters, than it needs to go.  If your scene shows your protagonist commute to work, and he just drives for a while, gets stuck in traffic and then gets to his destination and nothing more, then nothing happened (we may know that he has an irritating drive to work, but unless that is relevant to the story, don’t show it).  If on the way we see how he reacts to situations, if he gets an important call, if he is running late and really needs to be on time, or he get’s into an accident then something is happening.

This is the same reason why you don’t often see characters walk up to the front door of a house, the movie just cuts to them standing there.  Because it’s not important that they walked up the front walkway, it’s important that someone answered the door.   So start your scene when the door opens.

3)  Explaining What the Audience Already Knows
It’s like watching a crime being committed, seeing who did it, seeing why they did it and then watching the police look at all the clues and discuss how/why it could have happened.  The audience isn’t going to care about the police’s theories and opinions because the audience already knows what happened.  You need to leave some mystery, you have to withhold some information from the audience.  If your audience knows all the hows and whys, then there is no reason to continue reading your story or watching your film.

4)  Telling, not Showing
Film is visual, so you should always show rather than tell.  Too many times films prefer the opposite.  I find this is especially troubling when introducing protagonists and antagonists.  If you say your protagonist is a good person, if you say he has a good job, a good life and takes care of his grandmother, than the audience knows that he is a good person.  However, they may not believe it.  People don’t believe everything they hear, so if your audience hears that your protagonist is a good person, but they don’t do good things, they will get suspicious that they are in fact not such a good person and may not like this person anymore.  So don’t say they take care of their grandmother, show them doing it.  It will dispel all the doubt.  Seeing is believing.

For the antagonist, I have found that there is a bit of myth that can be created by talking about their evil deeds.  However, the audience will once again want proof.  If you just say someone is bad, but they never do anything bad, than it just seems like this person is being badmouthed and slandered which could invoke sympathy, which is not typically what your antagonist should invoke.  So show them doing bad, leave no doubt in your audiences mind as to who the villain is.

5)  Disregard for the Way the World Actually Works
Films don’t have to operate in the real world.  They can have their own rules, especially in sci-fi and fantasy.  But you have to explain the changes.  Your audience understands how the world works and they will notice when your film is not following the rules of the world.  And if that happens, they will not believe in your film and you will have lost them forever.  If you have to change the rules, if something happens that’s contrary to how one might expect, then you have to explain it.  It doesn’t have to be an exact scientific explanation, but if your future set sci-fi film involves the recovery and flying of 1000 year old jet planes, you had better explain how they could still be in fully functional and in working order.  Because any computer has struggled to last half a decade.

So there you go, five simple steps.  Always follow them.  They may seem obvious, but sometimes we all need a reminder.

And now I will leave you with one last important lesson that comes from watching bad films.  No matter how bad the film is, it is still a film.  It was made and it was finished.  A crew worked on it, actors performed in it, a script was written and money was put into it.  Which means there is nothing stopping you from making your film.  So get out there and make it.

Well, it has been a bit of a whirlwind of a few weeks here with the CSSC. The 2011/12 submissions have been closed with the passing of the I-Missed-The-Deadline deadline and Principal Photography has come and gone on 2008′s 2nd place winner’s (David Carey), “NO MAN’S LAND”. Which, by the way, we have also decided to change the title to “WILL”.

We shot over two days in Simi Valley, in beautiful and sunny Los Angeles, CA during the beginning of February.

We had a fantastic crew being helmed by Laurence Cohen (you may recall his work from the Cannes and Worldwide Short Film Festival bows on “RUSTED PYRE”), and no less than four Canon 7D’s on the go, capturing what seemed like every angle– giving a lot of footage for Director/Editor (Laurence) to sift through to pull our story together in the edit and magic of post-production.

A huge shout out and thanks to our amazing co-producer and composer Andrew Raiher and our wonderful cast and crew, who gave 110% of blood, sweat and tears in the mud, all Super Bowl weekend long– and as well to Siobhan McCarthy, the CSSC Short Film Fund and the rest of the team with the BC Kick Start Arts Foundation, whom without their generous support, we would not have been greenlit for this most excellent weekend of filming.

It is also important to note that “WILL” has already been invited to it’s first film festival. “WILL” will premiere March 21-25th, 2012 in Vancouver, BC as part of the Wide Angle Media Festival! We hope to see you there.

Now, I mentioned one down… two more to go. That’s right folks. You may recall that we ran a KickStarter campaign earlier, or rather, later last year we ran a KS campaign for the Herrmann brothers’ and 2010/11 first place winner, “ELIJAH THE PROPHET” to be directed by James Cooper and starring Brian Markinson, Melanie Nicholls-King and Tonya Lee Williams… and you may also recall our 2009/10 first place script “SOMETHING POINTLESS”, written by Neil Graham. Well, thanks to all the generous backers on KickStarter and a generous contribution by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, both projects have been greenlit for production over the Spring/Summer of 2012.

Casting will begin shortly on “SOMETHING POINTLESS”, which is set to be directed by Cohen, and we will be looking to complete our casting on “ELIJAH” with Mr. Cooper in the coming weeks.

Once production is complete on these two additional projects, they will mark the 5th and 6th short films produced and arising out of the CSSC since it’s inception and only 3 years of winners.

Boy, it sure does feel good to be kicking off 6 careers with produced scripts and professional IMDb credits for Gordon Pengilly, Surita Parmar, Daniel Audet, David Carey, Neil Graham and Zach & Jesse Herrmann.

….Ahhhhhhhhh.

Sorry about that. I’m just taking a post shooting/pre-production soaking of it all in.

Okay. Back to work.

And, with that said… and the 2011/12 script submissions being closed, I have a tonne of scripts to get through to find out WHO’S SCRIPT IS GOING TO BE MADE IN TO A SHORT FILM NEXT!!!

Check back on February 29th right here on THE Blog to see who will be announced as a TOP 50 Finalist in the 2011/12 Canadian Short Screenplay Competition.

To see more photos from the filming of “WILL”, check out our facebook page here.

I don’t know if others have noticed this, and I have just been blind to it, but this is new to me.  I recently watched Death Wish and the three thugs at the start run passed a group of nuns and then I watched Carade and during a foot chase, Cary Grant runs into a group of nuns.  And if memory serves me, this happens in Run Lola Run as well.  And I’m pretty sure this happens in many other films and but I was unable to find a list.  I don’t know what your city looks like, but I don’t think I have ever walked passed a group of nuns, yet in many foot chase in film, this seems to happen.  Is this like the fruit stand in a car chase?  Do people just put nuns in a chase scene as some sort of traditional cliché?

I don’t know, but look for nuns during chase scenes.  Writers seem to think they are everywhere.

So as promised, this week I am talking about theme.

What is your idea?  What is it that you wish to say?  What emotion, situation, struggle, philosophy do you wish to explore?

What is your film about?  To me this is the most important element when writing a script.  If you have nothing to say, then you have nothing to write.  Each film says something, each film is a commentary on something, each film is an essay about something, each film explores an idea.  And every film is better for doing it.

The governing idea behind your story will become your theme.  It will become the heart of your story, the message of your story.  But I prefer not to think of it as the message, to me that brings to mind preachy films that force-feed their philosophy or TV shows that have a character explain their new outlook in life, or the lesson they have learned.  These preachy shows are examples of themes, but theme can be executed without being so blunt.  The theme does not need to be spelled out for the audience.

The theme is the underlying message of your story.  It is not what your story is about, but the message underneath.  Your story can be about an unemployed father robbing a bank, but the message could be crime doesn’t pay.

But when you’re writing, the more specific the theme, the better.  Theme is not a single word.  The theme of a story is not, forgiveness.  Though that may be what your story is about, it is vague and will not offer much help as you write.  To focus your story your theme should always state either the cause or rationale behind your theme.  Simply answer the why.  If your theme is crime doesn’t pay, then why?  Because justice will always prevail?  Because the truth will always be heard?

Here are some examples:

Death Wish is about a man who takes to vigilante justice after his wife is killed and his daughter raped.  The theme is that vigilante justice works because he can do what the cops can’t.

The Artist is about an actor who won’t transition from silent films to the new format, talkies.  The theme is that sometimes you have to swallow your pride if you are to live in a changing world.

Hugo is about a boy trying to rebuild an automaton that he believes will write a message from his deceased father.  The theme is that when you follow your passion, life is worth living.

What I find makes the theme so important when writing is that it keeps you on track.  It is a reminder of what your story is exploring, and what your story wants to say.  It also keeps you focused on where the plot should eventually go.  It doesn’t dictate what will happen in the plot, but if you want to say that vigilante justice doesn’t work, then naturally your vigilante shouldn’t get away with their crimes.  How you go about reaching this conclusion is dictated by your plot, it is simply focused by your theme.

So think about what you want to say.  Because I know you have something to say, if you didn’t you wouldn’t be a writer.  So whatever your message is, find it and write it down.

And then you will find yourself stuck in a conundrum.  The fact is that in hindsight, building a story can only be described as a miracle.  By the time I have a story idea, and I have my characters, and I then have my theme, I start to wonder how it all came to be?  Did I have the story first then decide what my theme was?  Or did I have the theme in mind beforehand and the story idea formed out of it?  And what of the characters?  When do they become part of the story?  Am I forcing my characters to follow my plot or am I letting the plot evolve out of my character’s actions?  And do their actions follow my theme?

I find that I explore similar themes in my writing.  No matter how different my stories may be, there are only a handful of themes that I like to explore.  They are the ideas that most interest me and the ones I want to spend time exploring.  All writers will find this.  As you write, you’ll find your collection of themes.  You’ll start to see that the stories you dream up all match up in some fashion to these themes.  If a theme interests you, then naturally you’ll find that the stories that interest you follow those themes.

I just found out yesterday that THE Blog has won Silver in Writing & Literature as well as Bronze in Arts & Culture at the Ninjamatics 2011 Weblog Awards and I have been riding a high all day.  It would be an understatement to say that I was apprehensive about taking over this Blog last June.  The fact is I was terrified.  I don’t like to talk about myself, and I don’t like to talk about my writing, so why would I ever want to do that in a blog?  I was sure I would get a few posts in and then just run out of things to talk about.  But I took on the task because sometimes you just have to step out of your shell and take on something that is out of your comfort zone.  I’m not sure I would recommend stepping into a year long commitment, but to each their own.

I want to stay humble about this, but I am pretty excited.  I went into this nervous and assuming I would fail.  But now I have received a pat on the back and been told that someone appreciates all the hard work I have put into this blog.  And I want to thank Ninjamatics for that.  I also want to thank Carolynne and David and everyone else at the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition for everything they have put into this blog and this competition.

Two years in a row.  And I’m sure we’ll be back for three.

Now let’s get back to business.  It’s February 1st.  The end of the first step in the Canadian Short Screenplay Competition.  The deadlines are all past, now there is nothing to do but wait.  And believe me, it’s not easy.  I’m sure you will all be checking in periodically, waiting for the day when the results will be announced.  In the meantime, I hope you still visit the site and check in with me at THE Blog.  I still have more tips to share with you.

And as you wait, fingers crossed, in anticipation, I’ll be right there with you. As I have just applied to go back to school, and now there is nothing more I can do but wait.

And wait.

Now, I’m sure you’ve all been here: you print off your script, or assignment, or application or whatever it may be and you begin to look it over and you start seeing problems.  Not big problems, just little ones.  You start to see words you don’t like any more, you want to go in and make some changes to the flow of the sentences.  So you make the changes and print it again.  And again you see these little changes.  So you make changes and print it again.

And this continues till you finally say, stop!  You put your foot down and declare that it’s done and that no matter what you may see, you are not going to make any more changes.  Your script is finished!

Well you’re wrong.  A script is never finished.

I have been working on a script for the last 6 months, it is 3 pages long and every time I think it’s done, I suddenly have a “Eureka moment” and find a way to make it better.  As of right now I think the script is done, but this is the 3rd time I have felt this way and I know it will keep evolving.  As I keep reading, as I keep searching for the hidden structure buried beneath a story, I discover more and more about my own story and the direction I want to take it.

And you’ll do the same thing.  The next time you look at the story you just wrote, you will come at it with a different viewpoint, you’ll be in a slightly different place in your life, a different place in your journey as a writer and you will find things to change in your script.  Be they small or large.  And you are just going to have to make these changes until you finally decide to put your foot down and say stop!

But it won’t last long.

When you finally take your film into production, you will find that your finished script is going to change.  As you add a creative team, changes will be inevitable.  As you work with your actors, as you find your locations, you will discover new subtleties in your script.  When words are translated to visuals, there are always changes, for good or bad, changes will occur and you will need to adapt the script to them.

But remember that no matter what, when you make changes you must stick to the heart of the story.  You will find that if you stay true to your story you can change dialogue, actions, characters even whole scenes and still keep the heart of your story.

Whatever your story may be about, don’t compromise it.

So don’t be afraid of change.  Don’t stamp your script as a masterpiece and move on.  Because scripts continue to evolve and you need to accept that.

That’s all for this week.  I have the day off today and I plan to spend it writing.  Tune in next week, I’ll be talking about the heart of your story.  Theme.

Well, by jove… I wasn’t sure we could top last year, but not only were we nominated in two separate categories this year– but we are walking home with two medals. A silver and bronze place finish in the Best Weblog About Writing & Literature | Écriture et littérature and Best Weblog About Arts & Culture | Arts et culture categories respectively. A hearty congrats to weekly poster and #WriterWednesday Laureaute, Evan Jobb for all the blood sweat and tears that he has poured in to his weekly musings on life as an emerging screenwriting talent in Canada. Evan took over the annual #WW Laureate post from Carolynne Ciceri, who also every now and then will grace THE Blog with a surprize missive from the Cocoverse. Without these two tremendous writing talents, this blog would not be half of what it is. We tip our hats to you both!! (as do the Canadian Weblog Award judges).

You can check out the other winners in these categories and others on the The Ninjamatics’ 2011 Canadian Weblog Awards Winners page!

And now that you’ve learned that we are award-winning, again. There is still time for you to submit your screenplay for our own awards in the 4th edition of the annual Canadian Short Screenplay Competition.

Check out the entry details here. Contest for 2011/12 ends January 31st, 2012 at 11:59 pm PST.

I am exhusted today, work is getting busy and there just seems like less and less time to write this blog.  That is why I am writing this late at night, and after a particularly long day.   And this is why I need to take special interest in my topic this week.

Today I am talking about something that is near and dear to me, spelling.   And as I type this late at night, I have already corrected 4 spelling mistakes by this point in the post.

This topic is also important as you polish off your scripts for the CSSC deadline on January 31^st.    Because after everything is done on your script, you will still find spelling mistakes.  I found mistakes in Those Forgotten when I was on draft 9 and we were just about to roll the film, no one had bothered to tell me that I had a mistake.

Now on this blog I don’t have that problem on this blog.  Not because I don’t make spelling mistakes, because I do all the time, but because a friend of mine sends me an email highlighting my mistakes.  I have two of them for you.

“He had not see yet seen the film as he was out of the country when we screened it.”

“They mush have their own voice.”

I am horrified every time I see these emails.  I hate spelling mistakes, however, I am awful at spelling.  So I am doomed from the start.   But everytime I get these emails, I am reminded that I need to double, triple, quadruple, quintuple, sextuple, septuple, octuple, nontuple and dectuple check my spelling.  And when you submit your scripts, you want to do the same.

How many times is the meaning of a sentence lost because the reader can’t look past the spelling mistake.  You want your readers to be emersed in your story and swept away by it, you don’t want your spelling mistakes getting in the way, preventing your story from shinning through.

Because spelling mistakes are destracting, it takes you a moment to figure out what word is suppose to be there, and thus it ruins the flow, it ruins your great sentence and puts a blemish on your message and the impact your words should have had.

My tally as I wrote this is I have 4 spelling mistakes on this post, one instance where I repeated words and a missing question mark.  Feel free to point any out to me that I may have missed.  Because there is no hiding from spelling mistakes, someone is going to see it’s going to show that you didn’t read over your work and make corrections.  And if you can’t be bothered to read over your work, why should someone else?

So get correcting.  You only have a week to go.

We were short listed in our category as part of the 2011 Canadian Weblog Awards! Second year running!

Congrats to Evan Jobb who weekly brings to you tales as an emerging screen writing talent in this country! And also a hearty congrats to our fellow short list nominees. It’s an honour to be listed among such talented writers and clever types.

Be sure to tune back in to the ninjamatics site on January 31st, 2012 when they reveal the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finishes…

Best Weblog About Writing & Literature
Écriture et littérature
Calling Shotgun
Ill Seen, Ill Said
Interviews & Reviews
Marcy Kennedy & Lisa Hall-Wilson
THE Blog (That’s us!)