... well, pounds anyway! On Sunday evening I had a very lovely email from the people over at Dark Tales to let me know that my story, Send in the Clowns placed second in their December monthly competition. My prize is publication in a future issue of Dark Tales and a stonking one hundred quid. I was mighty pleased, let me tell you!
Frequent blog readers or those who follow me on Facebook, Twitter or any of the writing groups I'm a member of may remember that I previously came third in the Dark Tales August comp with my tale The House on Melton Street. I hope to be able to bring you news of a publication date soon!
Needless to say, I will be submitting another tale to the February comp. I am hoping I may have found my niche and this could be the beginning of a semi-regular moneyspinner to pay for all the other comps I want to enter!
It was particularly good to receive the news on Sunday as it put a positive final spin on a week that had, frankly, been a little bit of a disaster. On Monday, Himself took our new(ish, bought at the very tail end of November last year) car for its MOT. It failed. Royally. To the tune of nearly five hundred smackers. Needless to say we had a total decapitated chicken moment and I had a bit of a cry. The credit card covered it for now, but it's still money we couldn't really afford to part with. On inspection of the information provided by the garage, it would appear the car was not road legal when we bought it, so we are going to attempt to recover some of the money from the dealer, but I shan't be counting my chickens before they hatch.
Monday was also a sad day, particularly for Himself, as the old car (our very first!) was shipped off to the scrappy to be cubed.
On the bright side, we did get more money for it than we thought we would, so the day wasn't a total loss!
On Saturday, I made a very good attempt at killing myself. Leaving an Albany Down gig and crossing the road to our car, I turned my ankle over and fell into the road... in the dark and in the path of an oncoming car! Thankfully the driver saw either me, Himself or my frantically waving MIL and stopped to check I was okay. I was, albeit a bit sore and very embarrassed. I hadn't even had a drink!
Only me...
Hi Stef
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, many congratulations on the contest win - and I hope the cash helps a little bit toward that horrific bill for the car, I only hope you can squeeze some out of the dealer too, sounds like he mis-sold you the car, at the least.
(Nice money prize too - I've made far more from my published short stories than I have (or am likely to) from my novels, but I love writing them so much more. I wonder why shorts pay better than full lengths - unless you're a big publisher best selling author, of course).
Glad you survived your near-death experience, that could have been very nasty!