Apologies for the radio silence on this blog for such a long time!! Time flies when you’re, er, busy 😉 And for the last year, I have actually been much busier with my writing again. More to come on that soon, but for now…
To get back into things, let me share no.46 on my “50 Things For 50” list with you (should be self-explanatory but, if not, this is a list of 50 Things I decided to do to celebrate turning 50 last year) – enter a short story competition.
Now, short stories aren’t really my thing. They have a very specific style, which isn’t how I tend to write and I’m not committed enough to them to properly learn. But they’re fun – and quick! – to write, so I thought I’d have another go.
I had planned to find a sci-fi competition to enter, seeing as sci-fi is my thang. However, just as the Sheffield Authors announced their annual competition, I was at an event where the preacher was speaking on Psalm 74, about the destruction of a city. As he said “imagine what it would be like if that happened to the place where you live”, I immediately knew what I wanted to write, as well as the title – “Twinned With Donetsk”.
When I see the destruction of somewhere like Ukraine, I can never understand it unless I can also see an image of how it looked before. You can’t take in the full weight of the change without the before and after. A war zone is almost incomprehensible to those of us not in it. But understanding that the photo you’re seeing used to look like a normal street or apartment block, not dissimilar to the ones around you, can bring home the reality, humanity and horror of it all.
It’s still hard, perhaps impossible, to understand what it would be like to have that happen where we live, especially in the UK. But I wanted to try, by having my story walk through the places that I know and love in Sheffield, imagining how it would look and feel if that level of destruction happened here.
I knew it probably wasn’t the Sheffield Authors’ cup of tea – I remember from last time I entered the comp that they have a preference for more literary stories – but it was what I wanted to write. It was so strongly Sheffield focused as well that it wouldn’t work for any other competition, so that was that. Also not in its favour though was the fact that it’s very on the edge, with the war in the Middle East having got worse since I first had the idea.
Sadly, I didn’t even longlist – a big ouch, to be honest, as I’ve at least longlisted in every competition I’ve entered for the last few years*! But I’m still really pleased with my story. I think it achieves what I wanted it to, as well as ticking the competition boxes of being on the theme of “Secrets and Lies” and very Sheffield!!
See for yourself what you think – read Twinned With Donetsk here.
*Not mentioned on this blog yet but will be in future posts!
Hi, I'm Mel (you figured that out already though, right?!) and this is where I chat about things that relate to and inspire my writing, as well as share some of it.