Happy New Year to you all and here we go again into
2013.
After my pitiful performance for most of last year I
kicked myself into action and worked more on my writing and submissions in the
last couple of months. Here's my review of what I've done so far.
November 2012. I entered three poetry competitions and
one short story competition. I was runner up in the short story competition,
had no luck with two of the poems so far but not expecting to hear until the
end of this month, and the third poem, well, just wait and hear about that one in my next post Should You Ever Argue with Editors?.
In any case, one out of three ain’t bad.
December 2012 I entered three more short story
competitions, which I am still waiting to hear about.
I also found an excellent opportunity for a short
radio play I wrote as part of the Open University Advanced Creative Writing
course (A363). The play, Turners Never Turn, is the one loosely based on my
runner up story The Pit, and while my tutor loved it, sadly there seemed to be
zero market for fifteen minute plays.
So I was very excited to find this opportunity via the
BBC Writers Room site with Slung Low, an award winning theatre company, in
their Fifteen Minutes Live Project.
In their own words:
“Original
new short plays for radio that are performed live in front of an audience with
on-stage sound effects and live music … Each 15 Minutes Live will be produced and performed in
a different venue and location with original scores for each event played live
by the band. A permanent legacy will be created online of new audio work and a
body of new stories that look to speak to an audience both digitally and live.”
Each session has a theme and while my play did not fit the current
submission requirements, I contacted them and they were happy to look at my
play on-spec. As well as accepting
themed submissions they also commission work, so fingers crossed on that (not
heard a dicky bird yet, mind).
This is a fantastic opportunity for A363 students who may be
sitting on something we felt could never be used. Find out more at http://dramaanddance.britishcouncil.org/artists-and-companies/profiles/slung-low/
2013. So far this year? One entry to the Flash 500 Humour poetry
competition, and two brand new pieces of flash fiction written for the Darker
Times website monthly competition. I’m hoping lightning can strike twice…
