What’s your process? Does a deadline stop you in your tracks or drive you forward? Does a word limit make your stomach lurch? Does your imagination disappear if there is a big prize to win? Or do you thrive when winnings beckon? If the publishing world raises the stakes for you, do you raise the stakes for your characters and go for it?
Perhaps you prefer to let our story grow organically, like a plant. Maybe you like to watch it reveal new shoots with the seasons. Like a gardener, maybe you tend your story and mull it over in your mind, rather like mulching it over with compost. You know what it’s like to stand in surprise and awe when your story suddenly decides to turn to or from the sunlight.
Whether it’s one or the other, or something else entirely, we think everybody’s writing process is personal and entirely up to them.
But if you want to write something new and amazing for our short story competition, you’ve got until 15 August. There is a word limit and you can submit online. Full details are on the Abroad website. And yes. You life-in-the-fast-lane people will still have to fuss about double-spacing your manuscript.
However, if you’d rather venture out into your writing garden and gently dig up something you’ve tended over the seasons – we like that idea too. Let’s admire the roses together and just mention quietly that there are some prizes. While you prune away that tangle of honeysuckle and clematis, let’s just add that the prizes include Hever conference fellowships, a critique opportunity, and publication on our website and blog. But for now, let’s just fork over the weeds and enjoy the sun.
Happy to have discovered you and will submit some work for inclusion in the competition – wish I could join you at Hever 🙂