Tag: happy

NYC Midnight Results, Story, and feedback

So yesterday I finally found out the results of my entry into the NYC Midnights 2020 Short Story Competition. Sadly, though not necessarily unexpectedly, I didn’t progress to the next round.

I’m okay with this, I re-read my story on Monday, and was cringing at the mistakes which I somehow had missed on read throughs prior to submission, and even at the time of submission I knew it was fairly high level summary like, and sparse on details. It was probably the wrong plot, of the wrong implementation of the plot for a 2,500 word challenge.

If I were to have another go at this, I’d probably quadruple the word count, but that wasn’t the challenge. Hopefully next year I don’t end up with genre: historical fiction, subject: a water shortage and key character: a lumberjack. For some reason I just found that really tough, and most combinations of two of those three elements I could have worked with much easier. Still, I’m proud I came up with something.

So, without much a do, here’s the story, and afterwards the feedback I got from the judges:

Continue reading “NYC Midnight Results, Story, and feedback”

Put the kettle on, it’s my birthday…

Well actually it will be my birthday when you read this – I’ve no intention of blogging on my birthday, I intend on making far too many cocktails, and drinking them. Plus I want to try making gin filled cake pops. This fella knows how to celebrate.

But it’s a strange birthday, it’s not a number of consequence, nor is it half way between numbers of consequence… it’s just a birthday, and yet it marks a very interesting point in my life. I’m in a period of change, lots of things up in the air, making some mature decisions… and of late some markedly immature decisions, ultimately trying to get to grips with who it is I want to be.

Yeah, it’s a little trippy and pretentious – but it’s true too. I know I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a young age, but other than a bit of blogging, and one or two competitions, and NaNoWriMo, I’ve not really actually explored it, not as profession, or a life – it’s just a hobby, no commitments. I know why, I’m not very good at it, and that’s okay – I’m not very good at pool, but I enjoy playing anyway. So, writing will be a hobby for me, forever.

Other things need to change though, and hopefully those changes will lead to a healthier, happier and  more balanced life, where I can afford the mental energies to write, to learn, to create, and to play. Those are the things that important to me, and yet I frequently neglect them. I’d like to show my niece a better way to live, just as much as I want to live a better way too.

To get there requires big changes, so that’s the theme of this birthday. It’s not a traditionally significant one, but this year it is to me.

 

P.s. when I wrote this I didn’t realise I’d be ill for my birthday, which really sucks that optimism out of the day. Ah well…