Papers, papers everywhere. Draft 29 of a short story, 112th of a script – just kidding. It just feels like that when you are perfecting your work for readers, which are currently competition judges. Checking and rechecking, rewritng, reading aloud, trying to judge your work objectively. Sometimes I have no idea if my fiction writing  is any good and only of interest to me. I think it’s brilliant and original and ground-breaking. I’m not a member of a writers’ group where I could test my work and I don’t share my work with writer friends as they are busy with their own work. So, it’s just me and my own judgement.

I am, however, ever optimisitc that I will win a writing competition this year; 2019 is not yet over. I hope to hear good news that a script I entered to INK Festival has been chosen to be staged at the 2020 festival. I enterd the category based on a theme – this year was Inside Out. I set my ten-minute script called ‘Dirty Water’ in 1815 Bath, outside the Grand Pump Rooms. I laughed as I wrote it and still laugh as I read it. Maybe the judges will laugh too – not because it is so awful but because they share my sense of humour.

The odds are literally stacked against me. Twitter shows boxes full of drama scripts – 750 received, ready for the judges. They only choose 30-40 scripts to produce at the festival.

I have also entered two short story competitions run by Galley Beggar Press and Cinnamon Press – both on the look out for new talent by creating their own ‘slush pile’ from which to pluck their next Big Name. Results in 2020, with publication of the winner’s short story collection. Now that’s a prize.

Indie publishers Galley Beggar is a big player now with their Booker shortlisted novel by Lucy Ellman Ducks, Newburyport.  They hit the headlines before Christmas when their business was hit by financial problems relating directly to having published a  successful short listed Booker book  Galley Beggar and The Book People

I  have been busy putting together my anthology  – 36,000 words with two more stories  to complete – so it should be about 42,000. A reasonble length, I think. This includes my feather-related stories and others written over the past ten years, under the title Lost and Found. I have to be ready to go – if I receive THE email saying WINNER. As I’ve said many times in previous blogs –  a girl can dream.

UPDATE January 2020

My clever, witty, ground-breaking short play will not be receiving plaudits at the Festival in April. I will however, be attending to see what  kind of plays were chosen for performance. It’ll be a packed weekend of dramatic delights, I’m sure.