Rejections

Unfortunately my competition entry for the Bath Short Story Award was unsuccessful.  Della Galton in her book, How to Write and Sell Short Stories says  "........not winning a competition isn't exactly a rejection, but it can still feel as though you've failed......".   She goes on to say that whatever we do, we cannot avoid getting rejections - the only sure way to guarantee you won't get a rejection is not to have a go in the first place.  So with that in mind I now have my eye on a competition in Writers' Forum.

The Gift

My friend kindly offered to read the first draft of my novel (The Gift), all 55,000 words of it – thanks Tanya.  I handed it over and promptly stopped looking/thinking about it for a few weeks and instead wrote a short story.  Tanya’s comments are now back so I guess I should stop procrastinating and get on with draft number 2!  

Haiku

You will see that I have added a Haiku tab.  A Haiku is a Japanese lyric form, which encapsulates a single impression of a natural object or scene in seventeen syllables arranged in three unrhymed lines of five, seven and five syllables.  Writing a daily Haiku can be helpful in developing a writing habit.  It trains your attention and your ability to capture a moment in a concise way.  One of the advantages is that it can be practised anywhere!  So, why not give it a go?

The Writer's Toolshed

I've just finished reading the Writer's Toolshed an ebook by Della Galton.  It had lots of useful tips on Creative Writing aimed specifically at writing short stories.  It was good value too at only £1.88.

Competitions

This weekend I entered the Bath Short Story Award Competition my first short story competition for over a year.  The long list will be announced the end of April so fingers crossed.  I'm also going to send a couple of stories into the Writers' Forum Competition.  After all, what have I got to lose?

Deep Divisions

I have added another story, Deep Divisions, to the short story tab.  This story is set against the backdrop of the 1984-85 miners strike.  It was a story I submitted as part of my last OU course.  It arose from an exercise we were asked to do by our tutor.  In the exercise we given an opening paragraph to use as an introduction to a story of our own.  I liked the piece I wrote so I decided to build on it.   I have put some reading notes at the end of the story.

What do you think?

Check out the "What do you think?" tab to see the same story written from three different points of view.    Warning:- it's a gloomy story.  Which version do you think works the best and why?  Thanks in advance for taking the time to read and comment!