Household of five sleeping teenage boys (three on sleepovers), one snoring husband, two sleeping/snoring pugs and one dozy cat, all still in the land of nod at 10.02am on a Monday morning due to it being the holidays and everyone staying up till wee small hours watching th’Olympics and Usain Bolt winning the 100 metres yet again. I am awake as I have chores to do early doors and had to get up to do them then couldn’t get back to sleep. Made the mistake of logging on and started tweeting following the publishing of the results of the Flash Icon Competition at Molotov Cocktail Litzine where I got a ‘no cigar honourable mention’ for my story The Making of Legends. So pleased to see writers mentioned there who I have read and admired in the past, especially the wonderful @FEClark who has won first prize. I haven’t read the stories yet as they aren’t out for a few days but I’ll review them here when I have.

Many, many congrats to all the winners in the top ten and the many who have’no cigar’ honourable mentions and also to all those with no mentions at all. As developing writers, honing our skills, we enter competitions to develop and progress our craft and it’s so important not to lose heart when we don’t win. Hope this doesn’t sound arsey but it’s weird re-entering a comp. you’ve just won – sort of setting yourself up to fail – and if I’m honest I did vacillate about entering this time. The reasons I did were because:

• you have to learn to take the rough with the smooth if you’re going to be a writer
• I love Molotov Cocktail and the online community of talented writers of seriously weird flash fictionistas who contribute to it,
• its not all about the winning – its about progression and learning
• to sort of ‘get over myself’ and move onwards and upwards
• Not that I’m comparing myself to him, but one day even Usain Bolt will either lose or retire before he does, but until then he’s fearless and I hope that’s where I can be like him, cos if there’s one way to fail its to be too fearful not to try in the first place.

Very much looking forward to the next Molotov theme which is horror and am already hatching a creepy idea which will probably  keep me awake for several nights over the coming weeks before my MA starts. Whether it gets a win or a nothing its difficult to predict since its not yet written but I hope I learn stuff in the writing of it.

It’s now 10.31 and still no-one’s up. Might get cracking with a first draft actually since the opportunity has presented itself.