A bit of competition success

One of my writing aims for this year is to enter more competitions. I'm off to a good start, placing second in a flash fiction challenge run by the Nottingham Festival of Words.

I don't normally enter comps. There's such a long gap between sending off a story and hearing the result; I'm too impatient. But my artist friend Elaine tipped me off to this one, so I thought I'd give it a go.

The brief was simple: tell a story in fifty words or less. I decided to polish up one of the stories that I wrote last summer, when I was hanging out in a Whitstable bookshop, writing flash fictions inspired by customers. (And thanks to the great people of ReAuthoring for that opportunity)

The story, originally called Anticipation, was inspired by a lovely lady called Anne. Somewhere beneath the piles of paper cluttering my desk, I've got her email address. I hope I can find it, so that I can thank her again.

Here's the finished version of the story, with its new name:

Another door opens
I told my husband that anticipation was everything. There is not enough suspense, I said. He thought for a year and said this: I will leave you for another woman, but I won’t tell you when – would that do? You are a year too late, I said, shutting the door.

I'm going to be repeating my "writing on the spot" experiment again in April, as part of an event celebrating World Book Night. But more about that later.

Here's Anne again

Here's the first draft, written in the bookshop