Not particularly timely, but y'know, someone might not know about this. The BBC Kent website runs a monthly short story contest, usually giving you an opening line to run with for 750 words. My stuff's never been shortlisted, but maybe you'll have more luck/talent/Kentishness.

Full details and entry form on the BBC Kent website.

If you're masticating over Miss Milton or breathing new life into The Old Guys, then either you're indulging in obscene behaviour, or else working on your entry to the BBC Last Laugh contest. If you're in the vicinity of Watford (that's in the UK, folks) on 23rd April, then the Watford Writers are hosting a comedy workshop to give everyone a helpful nudge. You could say the Watford Writers are filling a much needed gap. No, that didn't really justify the headline, did it? I give up - full details on the event after the jump.

Parsons and Naylor's Pull-Out Sections starts recording its eighth series for Radio 2 on 13th April. As part of Radio Entertainment's Open Door policy, they are accepting unsolicited sketches and topicals for inclusion in the show throughout the series until May 17.

Full details at http://www.bbc.co.uk/writersroom/opportunity/

The masterclass with leading TV scriptwriter Tony Jordan (lead scriptwriter for EastEnders and creator of Hustle) takes place in London on 14th May. Full details and a Great Writing discount after the jump.

The scripts for the BBC Last Laugh competition are now online. In the tradition of last year's End of Story contest, Last Laugh wants you to finish off one of 8 sitcom pilots penned by industry veterans including Carla Lane, Trix Worrell and Marks & Gran.

Full details at www.bbc.co.uk/lastlaugh

We've all got excuses for not writing. Can't find the time. Can't clear enough space. Have to lance the cat's boil. But "If only...", we say. If only we could order up that perfect apportionment of time for scribbling, with a side order of hush.

So how about getting away to inspiring foreign climes to calm your mind and prime your writing hand? Somewhere peaceful, by a lake perhaps. Somewhere a bit rustic, so you can live out the cottagey writer fantasy. And perchance, somewhere where dazzling food and dizzying wines are close at hand to hone your already admirable procrastination skills.

If you have a script idea that's perfect for American TV or even the movies, then the Scriptapalooza semi-annual script competition is open for entries. It's a very US-centric contest, but entries are accepted from all over the world. There are actually two seperate contests - covering movie screenplays and TV scripts - with entries judged by an impressive selection of industry executives, including representatives from HBO, A Band Apart and The Samuel Goldwyn Company.

Your entry should be a completed screenplay, original TV pilot (half-hour or one-hour) or a 'spec script' for a current US show. The entry fee is US$50, and you could win up to US$10,000. The next closing date is 7th March.

Full details at Scriptapalooza

five (the channel formerly known as er... Channel 5) in association with the Paramount Comedy Channel have launched a sitcom writer's scheme 'in a bid to discover and produce original, homegrown talent'. To celebrate the scheme's launch, five are looking for a 30-minute sitcom script appealing to the 'older end of the 16-34 demographic'.

The scheme is open to all new TV writers - including people who've never had any work previously published. The deadline is 31st March.

Full details at Five's Sitcom Writers' Scheme

Another US script contest is currentely open, this time offered by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (better known for handing out the Oscars). The Nicholl Fellowships in Screenwriting program is an international competition open to screenwriters who have not earned more than $5,000 writing for film or television. Entry scripts must be the original work of a sole author or of exactly two collaborative authors.

Entry is open to anyone working in the English language, but once again this is a US-centric contest so it may help your chances if you script appeals to that market.

Full details at www.oscars.org

If you're really not a great writer, or can at least pretend that you're not, then the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest is for you. Named after the author that first gave us the infamous opening line "It was a dark and stomy night..." the contest seeks to solicit the best 'bad' literary sentence you can construct. Last year's winner read:

"She resolved to end the love affair with Ramon tonight . . . summarily, like Martha Stewart ripping the sand vein out of a shrimp's tail . . . though the term "love affair" now struck her as a ridiculous euphemism . . . not unlike "sand vein," which is after all an intestine, not a vein . . . and that tarry substance inside certainly isn't sand . . . and that brought her back to Ramon."

Entry is open to the English-speaking world, and yes - it is only one sentence you have to submit.

Full details at www.bulwer-lytton.com