as the fine publication that is the Readers Digest is running a competition for writing a story that is exactly 100 words long i thought i'd have a go. is it a tricky or difficult thing to do? the answer is yes, no, maybe.
basically, it has to be a "story", not an extract, anecdote or statement. that then implies a start, middle bit and end. the trick, then, is to think of a fairly straightforward tale and just construct it around the key words.
i managed to knock off three in about ten minutes. well, in ten minutes after a few days thinking through ideas. Michele has kindly selected one of the ones i wrote to enter, and according to the terms and conditions of the contest that story, now submitted, falls under the copyright and what have you of Readers Digest. ho hum, i can't really post that one here, then. there is not much, i suppose, stopping me from shoving up here the two that didn't get submitted. if for some reason you want to read them, here you go!
“Cheerio. See you later!”
That’s what he said to me, moments before I went into theatre to be there as my
wife gave birth. One of those good and bad moments, really. It was wonderful to
learn that I looked the part in my surgical gown, or scrubs I should say. It
was slightly less wonderful, I guess, that someone about to perform surgery
mistook me for an actual fellow doctor.
Either way, being
mistaken for a medical professional somehow made me feel more at ease. I was,
at the last moment, wondering who our baby would mistake me for.
As all the cars crawl
along in the usual traffic, I am getting a guilty slice of entertainment from
two vehicles in front of me. With the slimmest of gaps, one car moves from a
lane to another, much to the, going on the prolonged horn blowing, displeasure
of the driver he now sits in front of.
I do wonder what the
moment was all about. If the benefit of moving from one lethargic lane to
another isn’t obvious, neither is the point of getting upset about one more car
being in front of you. Neither made the traffic disappear!
if you are a particularly stupid person, and i would hope not since you are both clever enough to use the internet and wise enough to read this blog of mine, i suppose you could chance your arm and simply copy & paste one of these and submit it. should one of my rejected stories win, i would be briefly impressed, but i would also feel an obligation to point out to Readers Digest that, unless you have a time machine, the story or stories appeared here first.
if you decide to have a go and enter, i wish you the very best of luck (unless you have swiped one of the above stories). hurry up, mind, i believe the closing date is 30 November.
thanks for reading!
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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