Thursday 10 April 2014

A Short Story Week For Me
This week has been all about short stories. I decided that I wouldn't take any more of my novel along to my writers' group. I just need to get on and write it without showing anyone my first draft. I've been going back into individual chapters and re-writing them after the meetings and it's not getting the tale told! So......I put my short story hat back on and got down to finishing one I had started a few weeks ago. It still needs work on it but at least I'm back! I submitted some writing to Creative Frontiers and had another story accepted on Alfie Dog Fiction . It's a ghost story and will go live on Easter Sunday, April 20th.


The highlight of my week was being the featured author on the Alfie Dog Fiction site and I'm very grateful to Rosemary, the editor, for this. It was quite a funny feeling to click on the site and see myself staring back. The site has now moved on to another featured author (I'm writing this update on 16-4-14) and so if you would like to read more and maybe download a story, please click on the Alfie Dog Fiction link above and find my name under authors. For those of you who don't know the site, there are over a thousand short stories to download as well as e-books and paperbacks. The stories come from writers all over the world and cover a wide range of genres. When I first had a story published, I looked down the names of authors and recognised many of the writers whose blogs I follow or whose names appear regularly in magazines. Rosemary has done so much to promote the short story genre and gives prompt feedback and helpful advice  to any story you submit.


**Did you know that the 2013 Nobel prize winner for Literature was 82 year old Canadian, Alice Munro, who only writes short stories and not novels?** 

My short story week ends tomorrow with a trip to London to attend a Woman's Weekly Writing Workshop. I'm leaving Cardiff Central at 6.55 am - aaaahhhh, I don't do mornings now I am retired!! - and I'll meet two writing buddies Helen and Glyn at the Blue Fin Building in Southwark who are attending too. 

I'm looking forward to meeting Gaynor Davies and her team, especially Della Galton who is leading the workshop. Have any of you attended one of the WW workshops in the past?



Thank you for reading my blog and please share your thoughts about the short story format. Do you like reading 'shorts'? If yes, what is it that you like most about them?

You may follow me on Twitter on @JanBayLit.


2 comments:

  1. Well done on being featured author Jan, that's excellent! I look forward to a blog post about your Woman's Weekly workshop, I would love to hear about your experience. I wish I lived closer to attend these, I am still awaiting a first sale with WW.
    Have a very Happy Easter :)

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    1. Thanks, Sam. I shall be writing about the day in more detail in my next full post but just to say, it was very good and well worth the early start! Where do you live? Happy Easter to you too. :-)

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