IWSG October, let’s look on the bright side!

Today is the first Wednesday of the month, when the

…founded by Alex J Cavanaugh, blog about their hopes, dreams and fears. If you want to join this merry band of writers Click here to add your name to the list…
The awesome co-hosts for this month are; TB Markinson, Tamara Narayan, Shannon Lawrence, Stephanie Faris, and Eva E. Solar!

So it turns out I’m a published author, and you probably are too!

What am I on about? Ok, let me backtrack.

Just over a month ago I took part in a fiction blog hop. It was a blast, I was really pleased with the story I contributed and I got some great feedback for it.

Then I saw a competition which was a perfect fit for it. I’d need to increase the wordcount but I was planning to do that anyway as I have plans for it, but a placing in a competition would just add that extra something.
I took it down from my blog but before I started anything I queried the section in the rules that said ‘must not have been previously published’.
Yeah, that rule. Most competitions have that or some variation on it, and yes, it stops regurgitation of the same stories winning prizes or being published in magazines, but…

Nowadays there’s a big grey area around internet publishing. Let’s face it, there’s a world of difference between Alfie Dog, or Writing Magazine, or the Bridport Prize and my little blog with its readership of… er… 3! (Ok, that day of the blog hop I crashed into double figures, but hey!)

Anyway, long story short. Competition organisers have to draw a line somewhere and in the big murky grey web perhaps it’s easier to stick with black and white.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not whingeing here. I’m celebrating, yeah baby! Let’s look at some positives here:

• I did not spend out needlessly on competition fees!
• I’m putting my story back on my blog where people can read and enjoy it.
• I’m working on another, related story – for a different competition, that, win or lose, will count towards a collection of linked stories that I plan to self-publish.
• According to those competition rules, I can call myself a published author 😉

You probably can too!