Yesterday, I won my first literary award!
I went to Pikes Peak Writer's Conference last weekend. This was my second time attending, but the first time participating in the flash fiction competition. The rules were that you had to hunt down and collect at least 5 out of 20 possible single-word prompts which were distributed among various presenters and volunteer staff members of the con. Then you had to include as many of the prompts as possible in a 250-word or less short story and submit the resulting document before dinner on Saturday.
I, having completely forgotten about the competition in my desire to learn all I could about the business side of publishing, was reminded not four hours before the story was due. I managed to collect 6 prompts and gave myself a full hour before 7:15, when dinner officially started. I sat down, spread out my prompts ("flask," "sheen," "whiskey," "extrapolate," "valve," and "colorful"), and proceeded to stare blankly at them for forty minutes without a clue of what I was going to write.
With twenty minutes remaining and knowing how slow my hand-writing is, I shrugged and gave up. So I would not submit a story. What did it matter? I probably would not win anyways. There were published authors here! Of course they would win.
Then, as I was preparing to go downstairs, inspiration hit. And I had less than 20 minutes remaining.
I dashed off the little tale in what might be the worst piece of handwriting I have ever allowed someone else to read. Strikethroughs, blots, and the miserable loopy scratching that is my cursive script went onto a sheet of yellow engineering paper (because you can take the engineer out of the rocket shop, but you'll have to take my engineering paper from my cold, dead hands) and, after a harrowing sprint and anxious wait for the single working elevator, I deposited the sheet in the waiting bin with maybe a minute to spare.
The next morning, they announced that they were going to read the top three winners. And the very first line, from the third-place winner, was from my story.
So I made 3rd place! I'm pleased (and by that I mean I'm ecstatic, but too polite to run to the nearest rooftop and trumpet my success to the world). And a room full of people congratulated me afterwards, which did make my inner introvert want to flee, but I hope I hid it well.
Is there a moral to this story about a story? Not really. I'm just very excited, and thought I might as well share. I like when people tell me about the positive things in their lives, as it makes me feel a little better about life in general. So here's my little note of positivity for today. I hope it made you feel a little better, and if you'd like to read the story, I've posted it in the "short stories" section here. It is the second story down.