Jan

5

Longlisted at Cadenza Again

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So … for the second time running, I’ve been longlisted at Cadenza, this time with my story “Piss and Patchouli”. Whoo hoo! And for the second time running, I’ve failed to make the shortlist. Boo hoo! Clearly I’m doing something right, but not quite right enough. Still, I guess that’s my first hit of 2009. Now where else can I send it?

Dec

30

Fishermen’s Tales

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The judge’s report on the Milton Keynes Speakeasy Competition is now up on their site, as is my piece, “Fishermen’s Tales”. I’ve wanted to write a story with a protagonist called Milo ever since I read “The Phantom Tollbooth”. Which is quite a long time ago, now I come to think of it.

Dec

6

Milton Keynes Speakeasy Competition 2008

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Just heard that I came second in this one, with my piece “Fishermen’s Tales” (or, as they refer to it in their e-mail, “Fisherman’s Tale”, which is probably better). This one has had an unbelievably tortuous life. It sort of started out as my first-ever entry for the (stop me if you’ve heard this one before) Café Doom weekly flash challenge, all 349 words of it with the title “Bait”, back at the start of November 2007.

It then mutated into the first piece I wrote on the practice night for last year’s Children in Need, 356 words long, with the title “I Caught an Amazing Fish” (I hadn’t realised that you were supposed to use the prompts as inspiration, not as titles - duh). Following this, I inserted a whole load of backstory at the start, taking the word count up to 1133, with the title changed to “Catch of the Day”. This was, much to my surprise, Highly Commended in this year’s JBWB Summer competition.

Meanwhile, I’d posted it on the VWC virtual manuscript evening, where it was (quite justifiably) torn apart. I took the tattered shreds, stitched them together, renamed the piece “On the Hook”, and put it into the September session of the Café Doom crit group. There it was torn apart a bit more, following which I produced the final version, now renamed “Fishermen’s Tales” (or “Fisherman’s Tale”, if you prefer), with the word count bumped up to 1305, and the voice changed from first person to third. And the rest is history.

The moral of the story? Easy. If you’ve got an idea that you know works, keep plugging away at it. But never be afraid to subject it to criticism. And always, ALWAYS act on that criticism.

Nov

18

Back Again …

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… from a week and a bit in Hong Kong. Whilst I was away I managed to get to the shortlist for the Café Doom competition, with a final placing of seventh. I’m quite pleased about this, because the story I submitted, “The Future of Photography”, was a rather unpleasant sweary and violent first-person, present-tense piece, thus committing several sins in one go. I’m not entirely sure what to do with it now, but I think it probably deserves another outing somewhere. The winning story, “The Rules” by Jaelithe Ingold, managed to be extremely elegant as well as taking a big gamble with the form - watch out for that one when it appears in Necrotic Tissue.

Might post a few pics of HK when I’m marginally less jet-lagged. Fab place.

Nov

1

Say Goodbye to Next Week

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A couple of weeks ago, Café Doom Ed was panicking that he’d received only ten entries for this year’s writing competition. He needn’t have worried. There are now 39 stories sitting there waiting to be read and voted on in the next ten days. And there’s the rub: all of the entrants are required to vote. And that includes me.

So if you don’t hear from me in a while, it’s because I’m knee-deep in horror. Think of me at this difficult time.

Oct

24

“And here’s one that’ll make you groan …”

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Can’t argue with that, really.

Oct

22

txtlit

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What was I saying about txtlit the other day? Well, I just had a text from them saying that I was a runner-up in the September comp, and that they’d like to publish my piece on their website. Just shows you never can tell. I thought my entry for the August one was absolutely ace, but they ignored that one completely, whereas I thought this one was a bit weak, relying as it does on a truly atrocious pun. But maybe that’s what they liked. Either way, at 154 characters on the nail (including spaces and punctuation), it’s definitely my shortest hit yet. Woo hoo!

Oct

11

City of Derby Short Story Competition

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Now it can be told. A month ago to the day, I received an e-mail from Rob Smallwood, the organiser of the City of Derby Short Story Competition:

Alex Keegan, our short story judge for 2008, has settled on his favourite ten stories entered in this year’s competition out of well over 500 entries, and we are pleased to be able to say that your story The Amazing Arnolfini and His Wife is one of his favourite ten stories.  Over the next couple of days he will be deciding which of these will be in the top three places, and will therefore win monetary prizes.

I was sufficiently flabbergasted by this to completely fail to respond for a couple of days. When I did get back to them to say that I would love to go along (never wanting to miss the opportunity to network), I got the following reply:

I’m so pleased that you will be able to attend.  I have just discovered today that your work will be one of the top 3 stories, although I’m afraid I’m unable to say whether it will be 1st, 2nd or 3rd until the announcement on the evening itself.

If I were a teenager, I’d probably have gone Ohmigodohmigodohmigod. Actually, I probably did do something just like that. It’s not just that the money or the kudos of placing in a competition, but the fact that a guy with Alex Keegan’s fearsome reputation had picked out my piece.

Anyway, last night we went to Derby for the prizegiving ceremony, and I found out that my story had come second equal, which I have to say that I was really rather chuffed about. It was a fascinating evening and it was very interesting to meet Mr Keegan. There are places that I go on the web where the very mention of his name causes cracks of thunder and a darkening of the skies, but I have to say that in the flesh he was extremely personable, and Mrs P and I had a very pleasant chat with him. His critical analysis of each of the finalists was harsh but ultimately fair. I came away with a strong feeling of what I had to do in order to push myself that crucial little bit further so that I can do a little better than just place next time.

Given that this is the time of year when Eurofiction is starting up again, I should perhaps mention that this piece, “The Amazing Arnolfini and his Wife”, was originally written for round 2 of last year’s Eurofiction competition, where it scored all of 4 points (placing it 24th out of 50-odd entries). There are two morals to this, the first of which is that all scoring is massively subjective. The second is that if you want to generate a portfolio of submittable stories, you can do a lot worse than sign up for competitions like Eurofiction. If it hadn’t been for EF, this story would not have been written at all.

Oct

8

Ominous Signs

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I’ve just received a rather worrying e-mail from Fish Publishing regarding their Criminally-Short Short Histories Competition, for which I entered a couple of pieces of somewhat dubious merit:

Dear Writer,

I have recently returned, after a two year absence, to run Fish Publishing, and am in the process of familiarizing myself with the state of the various competitions. The Criminally-Short Short Histories competition, which you entered, has not attracted enough entries to make it viable, and I am forced to close it down. I am very sorry to have to do this, and I ask your indulgence for the following course of action.

With your permission, I will transfer your entry to the 2009 Fish One Page Prize. (Obviously there will be no further charge to you). The closing date for this prize is 30 March 2009, and the winner and nine best others will be announced on 30 April 2009. The winners, as per usual, will be published in the annual Fish Anthology of Short Stories, which will be launched in the summer of 2009. The first prize is 1,000 Euro, and 50 Euro for nine runners-up. All who are published will receive five free copies of the anthology.

If you do not want your story to be transfered, please let me know by email, and include your name, the title of the story, and confirming that it is a Criminally-Short Short Histories entry, and I will refund your entry fee.

I apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused. We at Fish want to ensure that the high standards we have developed and maintained over the years are continued, and that the 2009 Fish Anthology is successful in promoting the writers within it.

I think I’ll take this as an opportunity to pull out, because the two pieces that I sent in won’t stand a chance in the open comp (particularly as I’ve just noticed that one of them has a switch of tense in the last line - oops). But are the economic conditions affecting competition entry numbers now? Things must be getting really bad.

[UPDATE: Apparently, it's not just the Criminally-Short Short Histories Competition. Ouch.]

Sep

5

Hmmm …

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Well, that tanked, didn’t it? Ah, well. Wasn’t interested in winning anyway. Definitely not.

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