Oh, blimey. I'm reading one of my flash fiction pieces at Flashtag's Writing Competition event in Chorlton tomorrow. And as usual, before any reading, I feel pretty vomity today. The story is about allotment gardening sexploits; affairs, lies and hardening off. Spare my blushes. I'll have to pretend I'm not the prude I am for a couple of hours (...or perhaps release my inner Mistress.)

So today, I'm trying to edit something for the Bridport Prize, as the deadline is looming at the end of this month. I've had a series of very interrupted days where I've got to the point that I want to be rude to people and slam phones / doors etc. and be left alone for more than one hour altogether to get stuck into my work. Does everyone working from home experience this? People assume you're fair game to be visited / interrupted because you are in? Usually I don't mind, just shuffle in a coffee break I was going to have anyway... but this week is turning a bit epic. To the point that I wonder if I'm the victim of some odd Derren Brown mind game, where they are seeing how far I can be pushed before I sort of explode in violently criminal ways, only to be hypnotised back to mild mannered unassertiveness.

So anyway, on with Bridport. I'm working on a short story and maybe I'll send in a flash fiction entry, too. It would be rude not to. I won't win. I know I won't. The closest I've ever got with Bridport was the shortlist. But a story stands no chance if it doesn't even make it off your screen. And there is something important about seeing the process through and sending work out. When it bounces back I regard it slightly differently, like I want to keep it in play. It needs to keep moving. So I tighten, change, rearrange, swap feedback with other writers and then ping it off again. Hopeful that, eventually, it will catch somewhere.