Last night I entered the “Canada Writes” CBC Short Story contest. Instead of feeding the online submission form a piece that I wrote a long time ago, re-read, edited, and perfected, I provided it with something new. I wrote” Comfortable” on a whim last Thursday. It’s about a man who hates his job and dies choking on his ten-year anniversary cake. It’s decent enough – it’s the right length, anyway – and now it’s off in the universe, ready for judgment.

This is the first time I’ve ever submitted my work to a large writing contest. I thought it would be exciting, but it’s hard to be excited since it will take three months to know if I even made the long list (don’t get your hopes up, friends). Oh well.

I should be happier, since I’ve set some goals (shocking, I know) to more aggressively pursue writing, and submitting to three contests before June is one of those goals. I guess it does feel rewarding,  in a vague kind of way.

Something else to be jazzed about: I wrote a complete and creative short story in a day. Usually it takes me much longer to go from inspiration to finished product… though now that I think about it, the short stories of which I’m proudest were all basically complete in one sitting. Holy shit. I can’t believe I didn’t notice that before.

Mind = blown