There’s a very nice little monthly competition run by the Scottish Book Trust, a fifty word story! I enter each month with little hope of winning, but do it for the challenge. I overwrite, so to be disciplined and economical with words is good practice for me. The first one I wrote was ‘Fox’, then ‘Guitar’, ‘Cinema’, Apple’, ‘Boat’, and several more. The most recent one for May is ‘Diary’ – which took a lot of thinking about. I have shared a few of my entries before, but here are a few more of my unsuccessful submissions:
Adventure
Since I read Alice’s adventures, I’d wanted one, dreaming of desert islands, sailing a pirate ship, the wild west with Roy Rogers…. No thoughts of a Sunday School outing – being lost in a wood, alone, barbed wire fences between me and the sounds of friends – had ever lent that terror.
Bells
The first hours of Christmas Day; from the pub we sauntered, through quiet streets, past curtained windows, holly wreathed doors. Then “season’s cheers!” to friends, and wishing them well, headed homeward. We pause outside our fairy-lit home, and from the church above us on the hill, the sound of bells.
Hot Chocolate
Sheffield visited as a child never included clubbing. Now, high heels, short skirts, make-up, we descended into steamy darkness. A band was rocking, the coolest guy ever belting out ‘Could’ve been a lady’. We pressed to the front, he caught my eye and winked. Yes, Errol Brown winked at me!
I said “unsuccessful submissions” – only unsuccessful in that I didn’t win, but successful personally in that I completed the challenge and managed to write a tiny story in fifty words!
Lois Elsden 