An evening spent poking around various websites related to writing eventually landed me at the Australian Writers’ Centre. There I found they were running a monthly competition called Furious Fiction, a competition for a 500 word story with a number of criteria. This month the criteria were: the first word must be ‘music’, the story must include an invitation of some kind, and the story must include singing in some way.
I found the site with about an hour and a half remaining in the deadline, and with a lazy Sunday evening stretching before me, decided to give it a shot. I am under no illusions that I’ll place or win, but it was a fun exercise.
500 words was not much to play with, and the various criteria stretch your thinking in novel ways. I quite liked writing my little piece, though as I stated above, I have no expectation of doing particularly well with it.
Given it was rather enjoyable, I signed up, and will be trying to post an entry each month as they come up. Writing under restrictions, or with the requirement to include a set of specific things is a fun and interesting experience, I highly recommend it!