InkTears of happiness

Bit of a deserved plug for a friend of mine, this – Michael Scott Thompson, a writer with a bit of success in competitions behind him already, has picked up another prize. His story True Colours has picked up the runner-up gong in this year's InkTears short story competition. I've read it and can strongly recommend it as worth a read when they publish the prize winners in May.

Congratulations once again, Mike.

3 into 1 does go, sometimes

I have, to say the least, been indolent in my blog entries lately. But there's nothing like a bit of self-indulgence to prompt a renewal of effort. I should warn you that if you find self-congratulatory back slapping nauseating, look away now.

I have, in what I hope will also be sufficiently energising to renew my efforts at writing fiction, sort of been published in print for the first time. I say 'sort of' because I am only one of twenty writers published in this book, and a very long way behind some of them.

Yay!

Some time ago I entered a competition organised in an effort raise money for The Arthrogyposis Group, in which the idea was to write a short story which linked a black queen chess piece, a bunch of flowers and a ten-pound note. I entered and, already to my considerable delight, won fourth prize. This brought a very welcome two hundred spondoolies which I banked and spent some time ago, but much more gratifyingly the promise of an actual printed, tangible book in which my story would appear.

It had originally been planned for Christmas but, and this is something I understand all too well after spending 20 years as a print buyer, things were evidently rather delayed. This evening, when I got home from work, there was an envelope containing said document, entirely unexpectedly. I can't tell you how pleasing this is. Anyway, enough of the patting of my own back.

Should you feel sufficiently interested to buy the thing, you'd be supporting a good cause. And I'd be extremely flattered. For God's sake don't feel obliged, but it's available from here for a tenner including the postage if you feel like it. Just promise not to compare the winner too closely with mine - it's an absolute lesson in just how far I've got to go before I can consider myself a writer.

Just like buses

You wait months for these, think they're dead and buried, and then two come back in consecutive days. Flush from having a story published online yesterday, I've just been told that I've actually won fourth prize in this competition, which I entered back in summer. Or 'summer', as it's now known this year.

I can't point you to the story itself yet, as it's going to be published (in print!) in an anthology of the best entries. But I can tell you how gratifying this is, and what a spur it is to get writing again when the inspiration to do so had gone missing these past couple of months.

When the story's out, I'll point people in the direction, if anybody's interested.