I've been gathering all my notebooks together I seem to have a dozen on the go at once for some reason. One in particular dates back from my university days. When I was studying in Cardiff I did a lot of writing in my spare time and on the long train journeys. I mainly worked on a thriller called 'Ladykillers' which then became 'While the Cats Away' but I also jotted down snippets of other stories, dreams and character ideas. A lot of it is too dark for my taste now, but there was an interesting story idea about a magician that made me think oh!
Anyway two hours later I'd written a 1,000 word story that I really like. I've bravely emailed it to a woman's magazine and I'll let you know if I get a response. So I have now sent out three stories to magazines and have one out for a competition. I'm rubbish at remembering what I've sent where so I've made an effort to keep my diary up to date. I didn't have a clue where to start with stories for women's magazines so I've been buying loads for a few months now and have also discovered a great blog. Now I don't want you wandering off to it and never returning but I trust you so it's www.womagwriter.blogspot.com
I've also finally completed a 300 word story for the Tracy Chevalier/York Art Gallery competition. I actually wrote three pieces in the end. the first about a gallery security guard, the second about a family avoiding the rain and the third about the people in the picture. At first I wasn't sure about writing something directly about the painting's content as that is Tracy's speciality and I read about the Willesden Herald competition receiving lots of imitations of Zadie Smith's writing when she was named judge but in the end it was the piece I liked most and it has two young central characters.
The Willesden Herald international short story competition 2009 has just opened. It's well worth a look at the site if you want to find out more about what are the most common faults with entries and why no overall winner was selected last time - it caused a stir at the time. You can also find this year's rules so check out www.willesdenherald.com/competition/welcome.php
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