ABR - She Has Fire in The Chimney!

In addition to my looming honors assessment I now have to worry about the ABR short story competition.

Let me explain…

Last year, bubbling with way too much gin and ranting about my propensity to procrastinate, I made a pact with myself that (this year) I would accept every writing opportunity that came my way. This pact however was very specific, the opportunity had to literally drop into my lap, cross my path, fall like an Acme anvil from the sky.

So, I work in the best bookshop possibly in the world except for maybe this one...

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl0Oi-_lFYS9LvJLucLdx2Va2_2vmJsckG-nCzJst1mDmYqKzS02h6eh_-sd2bfnL_PhlCeQ5Ap6lmkP6Xu1x9j5xUBVp0DFeXjgke9SiQcghe_bFGn3dI_uEunHdU3bu4DJRvvRGzVLs/s400/shakespeare.jpg

Anywho, I was at work stressing over the proper way to classify biography when my co-worker Jess nonchalantly opens the counter drawer and hands me an entry form. She looks at me and smiles very sweetly, “here you go. You can enter”, she says. I pause for a moment, staring at the form in my hand before promptly throwing myself onto the desk where I begin to wail. Poor Jess and I have only known each other for a few weeks and she is still new to my various peccadilloes (the least of which is a penchant for the dramatic) and she was justifiably shocked. I tried to explain that she had literally dropped an opportunity into my lap, it had crossed my path; the anvil had fallen and I copped it to the face.

So now I'm writing a short story for the ABR Short Story Competition. The first line sucks and is taunting me from it's glowing white computer page.

"You’re not even on real paper," I shouted at my screen this morning, "You're in some stupid interim world and I can DELETE YOU any time I want!"

I hate deadlines; they do weird things to my mind. I hate competitions and being judged. But, oddly enough, an A+ still has the ability to give me the tingles that only Cary Grant should be able to give a woman.

Oh, why can’t I just live in a cabin in the mountains like Hemmingway, or write one perfect book like Harper Lee. God, I’d even settle for being John “can’t write anything without a bear” Irving. Why can’t I be made of stronger literary stuff, swaddled in the golden fleece of metaphor and endless paragraphs? Because I procrastinate, that’s why.

And before you say anything, I realize the irony of setting up a blog with the express purpose of procrastination.

Anyway, a great first line I read today…

"The dead man was in the living room, face down on the floor beside the coffee table”. Derek Landy from Skullduggery Pleasant; The Faceless Ones