Tag: Flash Fiction

Ermagerd!

thestuartsadler

Yesterday afternoon whilst sat at work (I work from home), looking forward to the end of the week and intermittently refreshing the competition page of the site I had been shortlisted for recently, I was impatiently waiting for the winner to be announced.

As I had not heard anything further and as the results were due, I figured it likely that the winner and two runners up had been notified by now. I was looking forward to reading the winning stories, and had decided that to be shortlisted was a great achievement for my first ever writing competition.

My phone began to ring and in all honesty I thought it was my mum calling to tell me it was cold or something. I answered.

An unfamiliar voice asked if they were speaking to Stuart Sadler. I told them they were indeed and a few words later the conversation became a bit of a blur of excited gibberish on my part because I had in fact won the bloomin’ competition!

I still can’t quite believe it, but I thought I should probably blog about it!

If you’re at all interested, the website is WriteStars and (for now at least) you should see the competition update in the top right, or you can click here to go directly to the story.

Oh. Em. Gee

thestuartsadler

So just moments after posting that last blog post, I hit refresh on the competition page and there it was in the (longer than planned) shortlist of 10, my name and story title!

At first I was like

forreal

 

 

But then I was all

wow

And then I was just totally

omg

 

 

Unfortunately I have no idea when the final results are announced, so as of now I’m basically

hurry

I guess I’ll let you know!

An update

thestuartsadler

Whoops! It’s been quite a while since I last wrote anything on this blog so my apologies if you have been kept waiting. Work has been busy, life has been fairly busy and I have at least been writing a thing or two, which is why I’m back here tonight. I wanted to do some writing but am too tired to focus on my story so I thought I’d write a blog post instead!

So I’ve done a quick check and the last time I was here I was talking about short stories and my novel somewhat getting away from me to the point where I needed to take a step back. That was a while ago, so here’s the latest!

That first short story was successfully entered and the result (or more accurately a shortlist) is due to be revealed this evening! I have been waiting and refreshing the page several times an hour all evening but alas at the time of writing there is no news yet! I’m not overly confident I’ll make the cut, but you never know! I wouldn’t have entered if I didn’t like my story so we shall see! It’ll be a nice surprise, but I’m not holding my breath!

The second short story (on the theme ‘Dark Matters’) was also finished and sent off, and I was pleased with that too! Unfortunately results aren’t due until January so you may have to remind me to check that one in the new year!

I drafted a third short story just the other night (an open themed competition for a story of ‘exactly 100 words’) which came out of nowhere and isn’t the kind of thing I would normally write so I’m quite pleased with that! After a couple more times staring at it making sure there’s no way I can make it any better (an extremely difficult task when knowing any changes must retain the exact word count!) I’ll be sending that off too! This competition is open till the end of January though so it’ll be a while for that one!

As for the novel, well I went back to basics for sure! I decided I needed more structure and a better idea where I was going, if only to keep myself in check as I write! So I have been chapter outlining. I’m up to about 35 chapters planned so far which I’m pleased with and it’s helped me cement my ideas and the story I want to tell. Of course when it comes time to actually write it (which I’m hoping will be relatively soon as I’m already starting to feel like a part of my brain is just sat in the back saying ‘Yeah, this is progress! Just keep outlining! Keep telling yourself you’re writing a novel, that’s it! Outline 100 chapters if you have to, it’s all progress!’ Which of course it is, and it isn’t. I am fully aware that I am still not writinga novel so yeah, needs work!) I will be happy for the characters to take me in unexpected directions etc. but the main thing is that I have a thread to follow and keep me grounded at least a little.

I’m hoping to write some more blog posts too though. In fact I’m hoping to just do more writing in general!

It’s all progress! 😉