I really hadn’t planned on entering this quarter, as I knew I didn’t have time to pull together a story from scratch.  But while working on other projects I came across an incomplete story I worked on two years ago but never got back to.  Ironically, I had intended it (in June of 2006) to go out for that quarter’s Writer’s of the Future, but felt I didn’t have the time or pieces needed to pull the story together in time.

Uhm, that was a slow gathering of pieces.

I’m guessing that if I had a crystal ball, it would show me this story finishing as a quarter finalist, or thereabouts, rather than a win.  It actually may be the best story I’ve ever written when it comes to internal structure, and it’s undoubtably the first story I ever enjoyed editing, or felt that the editing process was insightful and productive from beginning to end.

However, it’s not as creative as my previous wotf entries, and the fantasy element is merely inferred.  The latter, if not the former, will probably doom me to a search for alternate places I can send this story come, say, September or October.  Still, it was fun to pull out a previously ‘broken’ story and feel I was able to impose the structure necessary in order to whip it into shape, so I’d say the time was worth it even if nothing further came of the story.  And as for the experience of enjoying editing?  Priceless.

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