Dear Reader, Last night I hit a wall while writing. I usually have an hour or two each night where ideas flow, story elements come together, and the story progresses. But as I come around the corner to the last 1000 words of my story, I hit a wall. Ideas were not coming together. The story wasn't aimlessly drifting: I felt like I was on-track with the story, and I had enough space left within the word limit to complete the story. The problem: the ending just wouldn't come. Mu

Dear Reader, Today marks the second day of #ZuJuWriMo, and as is customary for me when I start a new short story, I map out where the story will go to get a sense of pacing and timing. And I found myself in that terrible place where I knew that the story that I was setting out to write wouldn't be more than a few pages long (and not even good pages at that). So I chucked my story. That's right: the story I'd been thinking about for weeks leading up to the competition, out the

Hey Internet! As of this morning, the Zurn July Writers Month has begun! For those who are participating in the #ZuJuWriMo, we look forward to writing alongside you over the next month! As a recap, the following rules are in play for the #ZuJuWriMo: 1) The piece must be your original work: others may help you edit it, but you must be the primary author. 2) The piece must not exceed 5000 words of prose (so title pages, citations, footnotes, etc. do not count - none of these ar

Hey Reader! As we prepare for the start of the Zurn July Writers Month tomorrow, we thought we'd check in one last time before the official kick-off announcement tomorrow to let you know one of the things we will be doing throughout the competition to encourage you. For the next month as you all are competing for a chance to win the grand prize of the competition, I'm excited to join with you (though we can't win), and I'll be giving some encouragement on the way in the form

Hey Reader! On behalf of the team at Zurn Central, I am pleased to announce the first ever Zurn July Writers Month (or #ZuJuWriMo), running from July 1 - July 31, 2016! Some of you are probably familiar with NaNoWriMo, the National November Writers Month, where people across the country write stories and submit them, potentially for publication. The ZuJuWriMo is kind of like that...only, not really. The formal announcement graphic will be on our Facebook Page later this week,