Cover Me

So, today, I posted off an entry to a short story competition - Opening Lines, at BBC Radio 4. It's the first time I've sent anything off to the BBC, so naturally I'm slightly nervous. But on the other hand, I'm not expecting to hear anything in response until at least March 2013, so the best thing is just to forget about it, and go about writing the next short story.

That seems to be the thing at the moment, for me: short stories. It makes sense, because normally I'm a terrible procrastinator (by which I mean of course that I'm excellent at it), and working on short stories lends itself naturally to seeking out writing completions, which are generally weighted towards the short story - even if there isn't a great deal of agreement as to an appropriate length that can constitute a 'short' story. There's a good few different stories that I'm working on at the moment, and I have this vague idea that at some point I might bundle them together on the kindle. Well, it's the modern way, isn't it?

This week will be my last improv workshop of 2012. Considering how nervous I was back in September that nobody would ever turn up to any of the workshops, I've been very pleased by the support and amount of returning customers. As I say, this Sunday is the last one this year, so if you're around the Iron Duke around 7pm, do please drop in and say hi. There might even be mince pies. (no promises)

I say that I've been working on short stories, but this week that's almost a lie, apart from the Opening Lines entry, and the fact that I had an idea for another story this afternoon. What I've actually been doing in the last couple of days for the most part is mocking up covers for the kindle short story collections. There are a good few very decent free photo editing programs littering up the Internet, and I've begun to have some ideas about how to make this (as yet non existent) collection look more attractive to the average browser online. Since I haven't actually finished all the stories, this is of course roughly equal to avoiding doing your homework, but ensuring that you use lots of brightly coloured felt tips to decorate the folder it comes in. But I guess it's not entirely procrastination: having a potential cover makes the whole thing tangible, even if, being an online book, it isn't literally tangible. As the year races to the close, I'm thinking that occasionally - just occasionally - I'm getting some writing actually finished. It's been a hell of a long time coming.