Wednesday 27 February 2008

From bleugh to woohoo!

I was feeling a bit bleugh today. Lots of work to do, re-emergence of rotten cold/sore throat thing, disturbed sleep caused by inconsiderate earthquake (I though it was child falling downstairs and leapt about the house in a panic), and Eric whispering non-constructive criticism in my ear.

Cheered up slightly by gorgeousness of David Mitchell's Black Swan Green - although it nearly ended in disaster as I was so absorbed in it on the train on the way home that I almost missed my station and had a mad scramble for the doors with scarves and gloves and sandwich boxes flailing.

Then I logged on this evening and found this lovely award from Moondreamer

Thank you m'dear for once again making me smile and sharing that fuzzy feeling, and for your lovely comments (and the gorgeous flower pictures on your blog). I shall pass this big 'Mwah!' (with added smile and fuzziness) on to
SpiralSkies for her humour and zip (not the one on your jeans dear), to HelenMH for her warmth and excellent writing and to Cally for top blogging and for getting me involved in this whole blog thing in the first place.

So, already beginning to leave bleurgh-dom behind, I then discovered that two of my stories have made the Fish Short Story Prize Long-List! Now, it is a very long list - 120 stories to be exact and Eric has just composed a new song that goes 'There were only 120 entries anyway, tra la la la la' (to the tune of 'Brown Girl in the Ring'). But I know that's not true cos I entered 3 (so there were at least 121!). According to their judging criteria page the long list consists of stories 'graded A or B+' and are all 'of publishable standard.' So even if my two get no further I'm still pretty damn chuffed.

I now feel so inspired to just sit down and write that that's what I'm going to jolly well do.

8 comments:

HelenMWalters said...

Well done on the Fish short-listing. I imagine they actually get a huge huge number of entries, so that's an amazing achievement. No wonder you're chuffed!

CL Taylor said...

Wow! TWO stories long-listed. Sarah that's a remarkable achievement. I'm fairly sure they get entries in the thousands. And no, it's not a fluke that your stories got in there. I entered a couple of years ago with three stories and didn't have a sniff of the long list. Your stories were obviously very, very good. Well done! Bask in the recognition girl! :o)

p.s. Thank you for my award. That's lovely. Thanks.

Jen said...

Two stories is brilliant, Sarah, go you!

Thanks for the award - that has started my day of excruciating toil with a smile :0)

X

Karen said...

That's great news, Sarah! Funny how something nice comes along just when we're feeling really rubbish :o)

Jumbly Girl said...

Thanks everyone. It has certainly boosted my confidence and encouraged me to get a few more stories 'out there'

Jill Steeples said...

Hope you're feeling better, Sarah.

Many congrats on making the long-list for Fish with two stories, that's brilliant news!

Milla said...

That was a shock - exactly the same blog layout as mine. AND I adore, just adore David Mitchell. Refuse to read BSG yet until the next one's out as don't want to be left without one to go. Only there the similarity end. I haven't been shortlisted for anything. Boo. Good for you. Note to self: cannot be shortlisted without submitting anything. Hmmm.

Jumbly Girl said...

Maddie - Thanks I think I'm on the mend

Milla - Snap! Us 'scribe' bloggers have to stick together.
It took me ages to twig on to the 'have to submit to be in with a chance' thing, in fact it was only very recently that I realised that the only way I was going to get a novel published was if I sat down and wrote one! "In It To Win It" as someone more orange than me has wisely said