Recently I have entered the Chrsitmas-themed flash fiction competition, Tinsel Tales. This has a word limit of 250 words which should be plenty to get a reasonably well-formed story in. (For reference, up until this sentence, this blog post is about 100 words long). The competition is slightly different from most, as all entries are displayed annonymously on the website for people to comment on and vote for. The entries with the most votes go on to a shortlist for the judge to consider, along with a few others that the judge deems worthy of shortlisting despite not having the votes.
When I first entered this competition, I didn't read the rules properly and thought - after I had entered - that the votes were the only thing that counted. I was really disappointed. I don't like voting on competitions because it just becomes a popularity contest - whoever gets the most friends to vote for them, wins. I just wrote it off as a bad job. So it was a very pleasant surprise, on arriving home from honeymoon, to find an e-mail telling me the judge had shortlisted my entry and I had come second! Now of course, I think it is an excellent competition.
So, I would encourage you, if you have a moment or two, to take a peek at the Tinsel Tales website and choose a story to vote for. The organisers tell you to ask your friends to vote for you, but I'm not going to. If I get votes I want it to be because people actually like the story, not just because they like me. So you'll have to guess which is mine. There are only a few entries at the moment, so if you visit soon you won't have a tonne of stories to wade through. If you enjoy a story - even if you don't want to vote for it - leave a comment for the author. It's amazing how good it feels to be told someone likes what you've done, and you can comment on as many as you like.
Let me know how you get on...
I put in a vote for Dead Cert, but also really enjoyed Coming Home, Christmas Dinner and That Enchanted Morning.
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