Thursday, February 01, 2007

Good start to Feb: a prize and a longlisting

I got some great news last week - I won 2nd place in Creating Reality's 300 word Flash Fiction competition! This is the comp that I won first place in last year... and I sent in three stories this year, not thinking my luck would hold. But they actually told me that all three stories made it to the final list - anonymously of course. Gosh, what a thrill, and a nice £100 too! Just about pays for all the submission fees to the competitions I have submitted to so far this year.

What's nice about this story, Mugs, is it is a much shortened version of a story I wrote several years ago. That story, in my mind, was supposed to be poignant, touching. But when I read it out then in my writing class, people cracked up laughing. I realise that there was a problem.

So a month or so ago, in my flash fever, I decided to take the opening para, which I really liked, and then rewrite it as a flash piece. It came out totally differently, which amazed and delighted me. So this is a great example of Rewriting (see blog post ).It's not up on their site yet, but should be soon.

Also, just heard today that my story has been long-listed for the Fish Short Story Prize . This list is like the first round short list, and then there will be a shorter short list, and then the winners. So this is a little achievement, but there's still a way to go. However, as Vanessa says, this shows that the story "has legs", it didn't bore the pants of the readers and make them throw it down in disgust.

Winner announced March 17th. Don't hold your breath.

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