Short Story Bust!

Aw man!  After weeks of trying to reign in my hopes and aspirations for this short story contest, I finally get the results, and realize I was wise to reign in my hopes and aspirations.  I didn't make it into the Top 5 for my heat.  How disappointing!  Though not completely unexpected, if I have to be honest.  For one thing, I've written a grand total of 3 short stories in my adult life.  Each one was better than the previous one, but there's definitely some room for improvement if I am only at number 3 on the list of completed/attempted.  All three have been driven by my trying to enter some type of competition.  I obviously need to "train in the off season" to make sure I make the roster in the future, otherwise I might need to give up my dreams of the Major Leagues.  Another reason why I wasn't overly surprised with the result is the fact that I couldn't have been assigned a harder topic for me to have to write about.  I don't do scary... ever.  I don't like to read scary things, I don't like to watch scary movies or tv shows, I don't like to tell scary stories, and I don't like to think about scary things.

(Basically sums up my feelings toward most things labeled or grouped with "scary.")

So, getting tasked with writing a ghost story was a tall order for me.  However, I feel like I gave it my best, and I was really pleased with the result.  Competition winning level of short story?  Obviously not according to the judges, but oh well.  At least I competed, and there's no shame in that.

Oh and regarding giving up my dream of the Major Leagues (aka writing for real), that ain't happening, not now, not ever.  I write because I enjoy it.  I would love for others to enjoy my stories, too, but I'm not going to sweat over it, at least not yet.  We'll wait until I feel like I've got a solid gold story that can't stay contained, and see if my tune changes, but until then, I say let's sit back and enjoy the journey.  After all, half the fun is the journey.