ENGLEWOOD, Fla. - s4story -- For the 43^rd time, scores of erstwhile authors participated in the 3-Day Novel-Writing Contest this past Labor Day weekend, holed up (this time on purpose) in their homes, garages or other spaces where they often find themselves sitting at their writing desk, staring at a blank screen (and just as often with a blank look on their faces) but, this time, with an added incentive: write a novel in just 72 hours over a holiday weekend with a worldwide pandemic, hurricanes, and out-of-control wildfires bearing down on you or, at the very least, your psyche.

That is one way to get over writer's block – which is exactly what the sponsors of the 3DNWC (these days, Anvil Press) had in mind when they devised this contest in Vancouver in 1977.  Since then it has become somewhat of a cult classic, inspiring authors such as B Shawn Clark, who first participated in 2019, to, in 2020, document the agonizing experience of writing a novel in just three short days, as seen in a series of You Tube Episodes that takes viewers on a tour of the writing process (plus his kitchen with the unwashed dishes) by one intrepid novelist who eventually says he is "feeling all COVID" when in fact it was just a mild case of delirium.

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"I must be hallucinating because people keep asking me if I 'won'" said Clark, now fully recovered (more or less).  "Of course I won!  I finished the novel ahead of schedule and, as an added bonus, I can attest to the fact that it doesn't suck!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6FBwKIMiO8&t=15s