It is safe to say that this summer didn’t quite end up to be the hotbed of productivity I had hoped it might. I began with grand plans, a vision of being able to juggle family time, a multitude of adventures, refocusing my blog, working on short story ideas and getting stuck in to major edits of both my novels.
I’m not sure who I was kidding, but it didn’t quite work out that way…
There has been lots of thinking, dreaming, talking, planning but very few actual words have made it onto the page, virtual or otherwise. However in the midst of all this there was one tiny writing milestone which should not go unnoticed: I became a published author.
It feels like forever ago that I entered the Cloudcuckooland Flash Fiction competition. I was very excited at the time to be shortlisted, especially as there was the promise of an anthology being released. But days turned into months and nothing seemed to come of it – and after a while I put that pride and anticipation back into the box of unrealised ambition along with the rejection emails and unpublished manuscripts. Such is the life of the aspiring novelist.
And then one day in August a package came through the door. In it were five slim volumes of short stories, pre-ordered enthusiastically when I had initially heard the news. And in each of those volumes were five hundred words written by me.
It is a very small step, but it is very much in the right direction.
And now that autumn’s here there are no more excuses not to get on with all those plans to get (many) more of my words into the world. Because that’s what writer’s do, right? They write.
Sophie is... 
I think it’s a huge achievement, congratulations and may small steps move huge mountains (of laundry if nothing else 😉
Thank you! Best not mention the laundry though… 😉
Hehehehe!! 🙂
YAY! That’s brilliant news! I don’t think it’s tiny at all even if it is only 500 words. Congratulations. Go forth and write many more such inspired words my friend. Thanks for linking to #whatImwriting
Ah thanks Maddy. Really looking forward to having the time to do lots more writing soon!!! xx
It’s brilliant to see your name in print, and irrelevant about the number of words. In fact I think short stories and flash fiction are extremely challenging disciplines. I’ve only ever had my name in print for articles, one day I would love for it to be for fiction too. Well done and continue to be inspired 🙂
Thank you 🙂 Writing flash fiction is definitely a different kind of challenge… I enjoy it though! xx
Amazing! What a great feeling it must be to see your words in print, and a wonderful motivator, too. Congratulations!
Thank you 🙂 It did feel pretty good!
Hooray, well done Sophie! Such a confidence booster. I agree with Iona that it’s very tricky writing a short story. I can do 80,000 words but would struggle immensely trying to condense a story to 500!
Thank you 🙂 It is tricky telling a story in so few words, but much more manageable when time is scarce! Looking forward to getting stuck into something longer again…
Oh, this is wonderful Sophie! Congratulations, that’s huge! I’m thrilled for you 🙂
Thanks lovely 🙂 Hopefully a sign of bigger things to come! xx
Congrats hon, that’s an amazing achievement. There is nothing like holding your own words in an actual book! Will you be sharing the story? I’d love to read it xx
Ah thank you 🙂 I’m not sure about sharing the story on the blog – I’m beginning to think I need to be a bit careful with that… I’ll bring the book to our meet-up in October though! It’s a very quick read… 😉 xx