Word.

I forgot to update on the short story competition (I may have forgotten to even have mentioned that I was leading one).

Was interviewed for the News Letter back in March regarding a UK wide short story competition being run by the National Literacy Trust in cooperation with Johnson Press. I had one entry (Echoes of the Golden Spike) sitting in first place at that time and another (Flickering Neon Signs) sitting in seventh.

Well after several months of waiting because they kept deferring the closing date of the competition (it really was getting to be a joke, it was supposed to have closed at the end of March) I finally clocked in at 2nd for Echoes and 10th for Signs.

So, I won an unbranded pen set... something of an anti-climax really. I wasn't expecting Mont Blanc but even Bic would have been nice.

I sound ungrateful, but I'm not really. Echoes is going to be published in a compendium (even though I personally thought that Signs was a better story) that is due for publication in the next couple of weeks, so I can boast about being a published author now (if I want to look like a pillock).

For those of you who have not had the opportunity to read my fine and sparkly works I'll give a quick synopsis...

-Echoes of the Golden Spike is a brief story about the experiences of an Irish immigrant living in Fall City, Nebraska, who leaves his family to help build the First Transcontinental Railway across the US.

-Flickering Neon Signs is a story about a woman who has packed up her kids in the middle of the night and fled her abusive husband, it is a story about the emotions she feels as she tries to decide what to do.

Not really a lot else happening in my world at the moment apart from the usual silly Saturday nights of consumption.

(This has been a very quick entry as I am waiting for a game to load... I really should grow up)