Rick's Writing Story No. 1

From the time I learnt to read at ten (yes ten years old, that's for another time) I've had a dream to be a writer. It's always been a dream to write science fiction and fantasy, what is now commonly called spec fiction.

I've had a number of false starts over the years, but for some reason I really got the bug about haft way through last year. At the same time as starting to write a story that had been in my head for some years, I discovered a magazine on writing called, "Writers Digest". As well as lots of articles on improving writing, I found they had a short story contests on there web site. The deadline for there spec fiction one was close, so I rushed writing my story, got a few people to proof read it (all family) and got it in by the dead line. I then got really annoyed when they put back the dead line, not once, three times. Anyway if I'd won or placed, I was supposed to get a letter (in the mail!) by the 31st of December 2011. I held out some hope because the contest was in the US, and I thought it might take longer for the letter to get to Australia. A month has passed, so now I'm fairly sure I didn't win. Which is not a real surprise. I reread the story the other day, it's called 'Bounty', and I think its' a good story, but I don't think it's well written. I decided to highlight all the parts that needed more work, there is more story highlighted than not. I also found two spelling mistakes, despite the spell check on my computer and all my proof readers, who all found many mistakes. Anyway, I'm going to give it a rewrite soon, find some new proof readers, and try again. Probably not a contest, more likely a magazine (or ezine) that prints short spec fiction stories.

In the mean time I've got another story I'm working on and two more in other online writing contests, but I'll get to that next week.