Writing a short story and posting to my blog site is a good way to kill time while homebound. This is the one I wrote today. I hope you enjoy

Begin my short story

I sit at the table. The birthday cake with thirteen candles before me.

Another birthday. How many more will I see? My body begins to fail me. Grey laces my hair, and lines edge my eyes and mouth. New aches warn me of my mortality.

My wife lights the candles and the children watch me in expectation. She picks up the camera to document the day. The pictures go into the family album. They will share space with the pictures of the birthdays since we wed.

I lean forward. The youngest, eleven-year-old Steven, starts the Happy Birthday refrain first. My wife and the twins join quickly. My eyes tear as I wonder how many of these, my loves, will share my twentieth birthday. The song ends and I blow out the candles as the camera flashes.

Another birthday passes and four years to the next. It sucks being born on February 29th… so young, yet so old.

The End

I would enjoy your comments. Be safe during this time of crisis.

Several months ago, I found a short-short story contest. The story had to be 1500 words or fewer. Entering  it was an opportunity to take a break from editing my two first drafts and write something new.

What to write?

I have confessed in an earlier post my jealousy for writers with great imagination. Suffering from the shortage, I was on the verge of skipping this contest.

Frustrated I lacked a topic; I went back to editing one of the first drafts. When I cut, if the amount exceeds a paragraph, I add the material to the end of the draft. It was here I found the idea for my short-short story.

How difficult could it be?

Owning an idea, time to turn it into a story. As with my novel drafts, I didn’t create a detailed outline. I wrote the first draft from introducing the cast to finale unconcerned for word count. The result was a 5000-word draft, exceeding the word count allowed by the contest.

Lessons learned

Editing the story to send to the contest was a trip as my grandson would say.

The first cut was to remove extraneous location description. I started the story with the protagonist entering the town. Instead, I placed her near her destination which eliminated hundreds of words.

Next, I revised the destinations description to add character to the building. In doing so, I could show elements of the antagonist’s personality. This saved more words later.

Reordering events eliminated more words and tightened the story.

Rewriting the conversation between the three cast members increased the conflict while losing words.

Now the word count was under 1500.

Beta Readers

Three friends read the story and each provided thoughts for improvement. Some of their comments made it into the submission; others didn’t.

The wait

The story is with the judges. Is it good enough to win, likely not? But I would be ecstatic to place.

I am considering posting the story once the contest is over. Would like to read it? Let me know.