This summer, Liberty Mutual is giving teens extra incentive to get off the couch and get involved with the Responsibility Project: For the Win essay contest. To help motivate kids to participate, Liberty Mutual has partnered with young Zach Bonner, founder of the Little Red Wagon Foundation, a non-profit organization which provides aid to distressed kids across America.

Here’s what Zach has to say about the contest and his current project, March Across America:

Check out the contest details:

Entry dates: July 6, 2010 through August 31, 2010

Winners announced: September 2010

Eligibility ages: Teenagers between 13-17 years old

How to enter: Your teen must write and submit an essay of 300 words or less sharing how he or she helped a family member, friend, or the community during the summer. Entries should clearly describe how they are using the summer to do the right thing.

Contest Prizes: Five winners will be featured on ResponsibilityProject.com, have the opportunity to guest blog, and have $500 donated to the non-profit organization of their choice.

You can read the full contest rules and other helpful information on their website.

Do you have a novel you keep vowing you’ll complete someday? How about one that is sitting half finished on the computer that’s taunting you? Or maybe you’ve made it past the initial writing stage and just need to buckle down and get those final edits and revisions worked out. Whatever stage in the novel writing process you are in now, LAFFN is the answer for what ails your novel.

What is LAFFN?
Well, I’m glad you asked! LAFFN, which stands for Let’s All Finally Finish a Novel, is month long commitment writers are making to finally get that novel written, edited, submitted, etc. Basically, it’s a time to stop hiding behind our desks, get off our creativity (yeah, you can read that as “butts”), and get our novels out there for the readers.

The creator of LAFFN and a talented writer friend of mine, Jennifer Walker – and the author of Bubba Goes National – explains the whole thing on her blog, Jennifer Gets Bloggy. Go check it out!

And you don’t have to suffer through the novel writing process alone. Come join us at Accentuate Writers Forum, which happens to be my favorite writers’ forum, and join in the discussions in the LAFFN section. While you’re there, grab the cool LAFFN graphic to display on your own blogs, forum signatures, and Facebook pages and encourage your writer friends to join in! They may hate you for it this month, but next month when their novels are complete (or edited), you’ll be their new BFF.

What is my goal for LAFFN?

I’ll finally be completing the first draft and begin on the revisions for my humorous children’s novel, tentatively titled “The Tempestuous Tales of Tallulah Templeton.” I’m a little less than 2/3 finished, but it’s all been circling in my head for months now. It’s time to get it all written, polish it, and share it with the world. My first goal is to finally get it all down. Then I plan to hit the market research heavy. I’ve already started on that, but admittedly, I still haven’t done nearly enough.

So, what are you waiting for? Feel free to blog about it and share your post links in the comments. I’d love to hear what you’re planning. I’ll see you in the forum.

Let’s all finally finish a novel!