Today marks the last day you can officially sign up for the NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge. For those unfamiliar with it, it is a writing competition put on every year that challenges writers to pen a story in a small window of time on an assigned subject. I did this contest a few years back and it was a lot of fun.

Although there have been some grumblings recently about feedback or lack thereof from the 2012 contest, I think there is still a lot of value to the experience. The value of the competition comes in forcing you to write something in a genre you might otherwise avoid. I don’t think people really understand how helpful that can be for a writer. Not only does it push you to write something new, but it may also open you up to a completely new genre. And if the feedback from the judges is a little sparse or underwhelming, I know they have a writers forum you can submit your work to for additional feedback. I’m not 100% I’m going to do the contest this year, but if you’re looking for something to jar you out of a writing lull, this might be the ticket. So, check out the details at the NYC Midnight site.