A couple of weeks ago I participated in a fundraising event reading at a local library in Auckland. The hardest part was finding something to read!
We were given a time limit, which I think was 8-10 minutes. I decided not to read something from Driftwood, because any extract that isn’t from the first few pages is confusing if the listeners don’t know the plot. Maybe a good selling point but I didn’t feel it was fair.
I then looked at my published short stories, but they are all rather dark, and while I’m quite happy for people to read them I didn’t want to be the cause of depression among the listeners.
So I turned to my mound of finished, but unpublished short stories. Too long, too short, not quite right. Amazing how time flies.
I eventually found a story called Eden, one of my first pieces of writing. As I mentioned in the earlier post I culled more than half of this story a few years ago, but then only tweaked what remained.
The core of the story is good, but the writing, while not awful, could be better. The great thing is, as I was reading I saw where it can be changed and improved.
I often wonder if I’m growing as a writer (the answer depends on my mood!) but for that one moment I could give a definite yes!
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