03 May 2010

A Brief Departure

I'm not a short story writer. Most everything I write wants to be at least twenty chapters long. Very occasionally an idea will fall into my lap, such as when I bought a sledgehammer and wondered what an Australian urban fantasy would look like, but that's no reason for me to want to write a short.

And then I noticed AussieCon 4 was running a short story competition.

Entry mailed today, clocking in a whole 14 words under the 1500 limit. Word limits are hard, though I think the exercise of cutting improved the story. Working in the required phrase, "make ready", was almost as hard, since it's very odd wording, and kept making me think of Captain Picard: "Make it so".

I think I'm most likely to win if no-one else enters, but it was fun to do this once. And who can resist a story with characters called Ru and Blue?

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