Keep It Short

07-12-2010

Since adding an RSS feed to The Bauble about a year ago I've noticed myself subscribing to a few websites that I visit. The collection in my feed is anything but logical, mainly because all the sites are ones related to one of my dozen or so hobbies. If it's a site that I found interesting, I'll bookmark it. If I found it really interesting I will subscribe to it.

Recently, while searching for a list of Irish Literary Agents, I stumbled across a freshly started blog by a writer-type person. They had information on contests, agents, general writing tips and updated daily. I figured a subscription wouldn't be such a bad idea.

Today the entry on this site had a link to a contest being ran in Readers Digest. Simple enough rules when you read it, but actually a hard enough task to complete.

The contest is simple: Write a story that is no more than one hundred words, not including your title in the word count. You can enter as many times as you like.

Now, one hundred words is not a lot to play with. Hell on a bad day of writing I would do five times that. Most days I hit around the six to eight hundred marker. So to get an entire story in one hundred would be a challenge.

So I did it, over my lunch. Little bit of tweaking to change around phrases and sentences. But I managed it in the end. I got a story done and submitted. Now, the deadline isn't until Jan 31st, so I might have been a tad early submitting, but what the hell. I could try and write one a day between now and then and submit them all.

But, ever the pessimist, in case I don't win I figure I might as well print the story here so folk can see.

Below is my short, short, story. Leave a comment, let me know what you think.



Final Affair

I'm running late, he thought pulling on his jeans.

Jane would be home soon. He needed to be back first, to get ready.

“Leaving so soon?” she asked, rolling over in the bed.

Bedclothes were tangled around her beautiful legs. It had only taken two drinks to convince her to take him back to her hotel.

“I'm late. Things to do.”

She brought her arm out from beneath the pillow, a gun in her hand. Slowly, she aimed it directly at his head.

“Jane knows you were going to kill her tonight,” she said, pulling the trigger.

Blue_jester