Let me tell you a story #2

Well, I paid my fee and made the deadline for the short story competition and waited for the day they’d publish the results on the site. The top placed entries were to receive a cash prize but all the runners up were also to be published in an anthology and my vanity could think of no greater delight! But there was some hold up somewhere in the process and I had to log in over and over again until finally the page had changed and there was a the list of the winning stories in descending order right down through Runners Up to Highly Commended who, despite their ‘honourable mention’ would not be in the book.

I scanned down the list in frantic hope and anticipation...mine wasn’t first...or second... or third...but The Woman with No Fire of her Own was in the list of Runners up and it would be in the anthology! It would be in a real printed book that people could buy because people I didn’t know had read it and thought it was good enough, not to be kind, not to boost my ego or get into my own good books but because they thought it had merit. I went round with a stupid smile on my face for days...

This is not the end of the story of the story by a long way but I’m wondering if you’d like to read the story itself now? There have been a few adjustments over the years and the word count has extended a little from the original Richard and Judy version but the essence of it is unchanged and I’ll see if I can find a copy to copy on here for my next post later today...