Monday 19 July 2010

A Disturbing Trend

"Write what you know" is an oft-quoted maxim amongst fiction writers. If I'm writing what I know, it turns out I'm a fairly despicable chap. Although maybe that came across in my last post.

Greed takes centre stage in my entry for the Hay-on-Wye Short Story Competition, while the story I've sent to the Seán Ó Faoláin Competition revolves around deception and the wilful destruction of public property. In my defence, the theme for the Hay-on-Wye competition is "Avarice", so I didn't have a lot of choice in the matter.

Themed competitions are not something I tend to enter very often.  Either I look at the theme and find it terribly uninspiring, or I come up with something that seems like a good idea, but won't fit the maximum word count. This time, the combination of an Avarice theme and a competition hosted by Britain's favourite book town both appealed and provided me with an idea for a story.

Both of these competitions close at the end of July, so if you've got a story lying around (and that just happens to be about greed if you fancy the Hay one), or have the muse flowing through your fingertips at the moment, there's still time to send it off.

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