Great week for my flash fiction

This week I found out my flash fiction Food  was long listed in the Fish publishing flash fiction competition. It's a great competition to win as the prize is 1000 euros! I've been long listed for the last two years. I'm hoping next year I'll write something that might get short listed. So I need to keep writing, editing and sending my stories off. Also on Wednesday my 75 word story Sharp Scissors was featured on Paragraph Planet.

I'm thinking now where to send Food next? I think its a good story. Have a few more things out there been considered in competitions. Love it when results are announced and for a split second I think I'm in with a chance. :)

 

Uploaded the badge at last.....

I'm so technophobic :)

Heaven on Earth......

Went to a funeral today, over a hundred people were there which is amazing for an eighty one year old man who was neither famous nor well known just truly admired for his kind nature, a real gentleman. When you get to that age many of your contemporaries have passed on and its just a smattering of relatives that mourn your death. It was so cold and windy that I was pleased it wasn't a graveside ceremony. When I die I hope I'll be buried not cremated. I want to lie in a grave yard with a little head stone above me. I'd like to think of people walking past and passing comment like I do when reading the epitaphs. The funeral service sheet had photos of Tony during his life and the last photo was of him sitting on a bench with his back to the camera looking over the most beautiful sea. It made me smile like he was in heaven already.

Snow

Snow, Snow go away.......
Since Friday it's been snowing here. At one point it looked like 4 inches had fallen. At 3pm on Friday the local buses had stopped running. I decided to get a taxi home leaving my car parked at my parents. I'm not keen on driving at the best of times! Saturday Mr T and I went shopping, visited my sister to see if she was okay. Then today with more snow falling we delivered meals and shopping to my sister and brother-in-law who both live alone. Tomorrow unless more snow falls overnight I'm positive once I get off the side streets and hit the main roads I'll be able to drive to work. Working at the local hospital it's not a case of turning over in bed and ringing in for a day's holiday! Roll on retirement when I'll be able to say I love snow, its so pretty :)  

Tat......

It came as a revelation, a bolt out of the blue, as her mother used to say. Dusting her trinkets one morning she realised it was all tat. Why not get rid of it all. Save her children having to sort it when she was dead.

 

She smashed the Dresden figurines against the garage wall. She buried her gold jewellery underneath the lilac tree and her silver pieces beside the fish pond. Let her children hunt for them. It might be fun to leave clues like the Easter egg hunts of the old days.

 

Maybe it wouldn’t be found for hundreds of years and classed as treasure trove. She found herself smiling for the first time in ages. She hoped someone worthy would dig it up. That eliminated her own children. High powered jobs, grandchildren and basic laziness put paid to their visits. The occasional phone call from one of her daughters seemed to suffice, like a smoke signal telling the rest of the family that she was still alive and kicking.

 

She wondered how they would react when her will was read out. She’d left the house to the girl who had run off with her husband. That skinny little girl with the big breasts, doe like eyes and amazing job in publishing. Tamara had done her a great favour, had spared her the task of ending her days with the most boring, selfish, inconsiderate man ever. Her children had all approved of their father’s choice and were great friends with Tamara. She was sure they’d applaud her decision.

 

Pulling the tickets out of the envelope she read them over and over again. A round the world cruise for two. She was so pleased when Anthony agreed to go with her. He was the young man from the bookshop with the foppish hair. They’d spent time together discussing the places that he’d love to visit. He’d be travelling solo when the cruise was over but what fun she’ll have till then.

 

Amazed at how much money could be released on the current value of a house, she hoped by the time Tamara got her home it wouldn’t be in negative equity.

 

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My flash fiction published in the anthology Connections  http://t.co/iZBxAWwH

 

Happy New Year

Today is the first day of 2013 and at the end of this year I'm hoping to be a thinner, nicer and happier Stella. I'm hoping to do more interesting things, write better, see places I've never seen and turn sixty. Turning sixty is one thing that will happen being born in 1953. It's finally dawned on me that I've probably had the majority of my life. This next decade will probably be the last I can truely expect and demand my body to continue in good health although my parents are both 86 and in fine fettle. Noticed today in the local newspaper a lady had died aged 101. Thats what I'd like to do score a century. So will I still be blogging in 2053? Yes if determination is anything to go by. I'll die trying :)
Happy New Year to you all.........

A Published Writer

Four copies of the anthology Connections arrived the other day. On page 80 is my flash fiction 'Tat'. I'm been published once before in an e-anthology called Take a leap but I'm thrilled to see my words printed on paper in a traditional book :) My son and daughter will both be receiving a copy and my good friend Sal Page has already received her copy. Sal has won and been placed in writing competitions and has written a novel that at present is unpublished. Notice I write at present because I know one day she will be a published novelist.
Here is the link to Connections  http://t.co/iZBxAWwH
Hoping next year I'll continue to write and improve.