The short story that was a novel ...

... is a draft away from finished, but I can't post it here because one of the competitions that I am going to submit it to requires that it has not been published in ANY form.

So I shall hear what the writers group has to say tomorrow, redraft, let it rest for a while (Hemingway put his work away in a drawer for three months and then, when he got it out again, there was an emotional distance between him and the work and he could edit it as if it had been written by someone else). Then I shall fill in the entry forms and kiss it goodbye.

I always used to kiss the envelopes that held stories I was sending out into the world as I stood by the pillar box (My Brilliant Career, anyone?); but now that, mostly, work is submitted to competitions online, I blow a kiss at my computer screen ... .