I have a confession. I’ve been meaning to start this blog for some time. But because I am a master when it comes to procrastinating, I’ve been putting it off and off. The thing that finally gave me a good kick in the pants was the Sci-Fi-London 48hr Flash Fiction Challenge. Specifically, winning it.
If you’ve never heard of it before, I thoroughly recommend you check it out, but to give you a brief rundown, every year the Sci-Fi-London film festival occurs around about now, and a few weeks before they hold two competitions. The 48hr Film Challenge, where teams are tasked with creating a 3-5min short film over a weekend, and the 48hr Flash Fiction Challenge, which is run in conjunction with Urban Fantasist and requires participants to write a 1500 word piece of flash fiction over the same weekend. There’s more to it than that, check out the website for the particulars.
Last year I participated in both competitions, but they clashed in the short amount of time I had and both suffered for it, so this year I decided to stick with just doing the Flash Fiction competition. The weekend came, I wrote my little story, Underflow, and about two weeks later I found out I was shortlisted. Then, exactly one month after the day it was submitted, I was standing up in front of a crowd receiving a lovely crystal trophy as winner of the challenge.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t expecting it. Hoping for it, absolutely. My congratulations have to go to my fellow shortlisted writers, while my thanks go to everyone at Sci-Fi-London, Urban Fantasist, and especially the members of the jury. I’d also like to congratulate the winners and shortlisters of the film challenge, all of the films were excellent.
I’ve rambled on long enough, so let’s get to the most important part. Underflow has been published on Urban Fantasist, you’ll find it here.