I usually
try to enter all the LAA competitions every year, and it's always a very last
minute thing. Most of my submissions are written specifically for the LAA
competitions. I also enter the National Flash Fiction competitions every year,
if I have time and I remember. Again, I write something new each year. I love
writing short stories, poems and flash fiction; they're a chance to unleash my
imagination and do something different.
The LAA
competitions are fun because I've met and got to know a fair few of the other
entrants, so I know that if I don't win, I still get to read a great piece from
whoever did win. When you know the standard of the entries, it's easier to deal
with not winning. That doesn't mean I don't try though.
I'm hoping
to enter more competitions in 2025, especially themed short story and flash
fiction ones. Social media is a good place to find out about comps, but there
are a lot of scammers and chancers out there, and it's wise to check
competitions out before sending them your work, especially if there's an entry
fee. I'm on the lookout for themed anthologies to submit to, they're the kind of
thing I like to read when I'm looking for a new author, so they're probably a
good way to find new readers for my work.
Going back
to the LAA competition, my contribution, 'Cherry Tree', came from something I'd
wanted to write about for a few months, but hadn't quite found the medium for
it. It's about a tree that my grandfather planted in the corner of the front
garden of his council house. I was a little girl at the time, so the tree will
be over fifty years old. I wanted to celebrate it because it's something that I
love but have no control over, and no right to. The house is derelict now,
subsidence, they reckon. The house opposite has already been demolished. A year
or so ago I walked up the familiar path, taking in the metal shutters on the
windows and doors, the way the fences have been moved since my widowed grandma
moved out decades ago. I stepped over broken glass and crockery, and thought
about the clean, organised, neat home that was so important to my family, about
the vegetable garden, the greenhouse for tomatoes, the rose bed and the rockery
full of alpine plants. I picked my way over tussocks of grass that used to be a
front lawn, and stood under the spreading boughs of a tree that I remembered as
a sapling. Everything changes. If I can pass on that memory in a poem, I'm
happy.
Poetry and
competitions, daydreams and reminiscences aside, I've had a busy 2024, with the
publication of the last two books of my four book 'Ransomed Hearts' series. It's
set mostly in Lancashire, with side trips to Paris, London, Whitby and the Alps,
and is the story of a family of shapeshifters, told over three generations
beginning in the early 1960s and coming to a conclusion in the mid 2010s. Book
4, Silverwood Rising, is out on Friday December 20th on Amazon, and I'm
hoping to have paperback copies available by early January 2025.
What's next?
Well, the LAA competitions and the National Flash Fiction comp beckon, and after
publishing out two novels in the space of six months, the short form will be a
welcome change.
