In June 2015 I joined five of my fellow writers at Write It Up! We met at Fuddruckers that week and we passed around post-its to create our original prompts for the evening.
When we finished and I unfolded my post-it I found these words.
ferris wheel
Grandpa
slide whistle
out of milk.
I put my head down, put my pen to paper and let my creativity flow. What found its way onto the page that night was a story that is still one of my favorite I have ever written. A moment in time for an old man, sitting in a ferris wheel bucket at an abandoned fairground, remembering the same site during his childhood.
In the story I named ‘Flicker’ I found shades of lost love, fading memories and long lost childhood.
Deciding that writing for over a year and not attempting to publish anything was effectively holding myself back, I got up my nerve, polished up Flicker and submitting it to the Writer’s Digest 16th Annual Short Short Story Competition.
A reputable and recognizable company for helping writers grow and publish, with a reasonable entry fee and I sent my writing off to be judged for the first time in years.
A few weeks later I received an email thanking me for participating in the contest and letting me know that all winners had been notified. Despite this, I still felt that Flicker was worth publishing.
I kept working on my writing and when the 17th Annual Short Short Story Contest arrived at the beginning of 2017, I went over it again, and again, and again until I felt like it was exactly how I would want to read it in a book and I sent it off to be judged yet again.
A few weeks went by, during which they extended the competition. Finally a month after the competition closed I received an email.
This time it said, “Congratulations!”
I quickly opened it and discovered that Flicker had made it into the top 25 of the competition and as such would be published in this year’s collection. They gave me $50 to spend in their online shop and told me a complimentary copy of the collection (including my first published story!) would be coming my way in July!
You never know where something you write will take you. When I sat down to write that story that night, it was just another writing night. Now two years later it is my first published story.
Each an every opportunity to write is a step toward publication. Looking forward to submitting more short stories in the coming months. Keep an eye on my website as I will share upcoming writing contests to encourage you to polish up your stories and submit them too!
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