Over December and January I properly perused my flash fiction file, collated a bunch of little narratives, then re-edited the lot as one document. Then I found a couple of opportunities and frantically tried to shape this cobbled together thing into a flash novella. Before sending it off, it needed something extra, so I tore apart a 3,000 word unpublished short story and scattered it between the flash pieces.  Then I bundled this up properly to make 35 pages of a thing. Readers, I submitted it.

Sisyphean editing for flash fiction is stacking rocks rather than pushing one big boulder.

Perhaps, one day this novella/flash/collection manuscript will be accepted for publication. Maybe it won’t. This is just the record of the fact I am still sending old and new fictions out despite bouts of why-am-I-bothering-pursuing-publication-at-all-because-the-world-obviously-hates-me-itis. And, yes, I am still waiting interminable aeons to ever hear back from journals and competitions and publishers, (not to mention employers). I do realise the world doesn’t hate me, it’s just, I really, really need some good news, on any front.

My conclusion to this update is that even after 17 years of sending stories out, it still, annoyingly, comes down to persistence.

One day it might pay off

Still writing