Holding my breath

The piece I submitted to the writing competion. I print it and then I go through it with a fine-toothed comb changing and correcting with a pen. Then I correct it on the computer again, print it again and when editing it again, I normally make more changes. When I was 100% sure, I typed it up one last time and submitted it

One of my life long passions is writing. That is why I blog. I also read voraciously. It's a known fact that if you want to write (and get published, that is) you must read, read and read.

I subscribe to online writing clubs, mostly in the USA. I receive the Writer's Digest in the mail every second month and read it from cover to cover. I am in the process of trying to join and writer's club online here in South Africa.

While I lived and worked in West Africa, I found a wonderful writing website on which I made many online friends. This site had writing excersises and, if you rose to the challenge of doing them, you could be sure of wonderful writers, (many published authors) critiqueing your work. I no longer visit this site (blogging takes up too much of my time. LOL) but have kept in email contact with two wonderful ladies who are respectively a published author and a published poet.

Last month I decided to enter the Short Short Story competition in the Writer's Digest and who did I turn to when I needed help with my submission, but one of these dear friends who had re-started her interesting blog. Eleyne, whose interesting blog you can read by clicking on her name, very kindly helped me tighten the piece until I felt confident enough to copy and paste it onto the competition website and press enter!

Now I wait with baited breath until after 13th February, incidently my birthday, when I'll hear if my entry made an impact with the judges or not.

Meanwhile I continue to write and read and read and read.

You can read the story which I entered into the competition here.