Last November, on one particularly sleep-deprived night, I submitted a short story of mine to a competition. It wasn’t a polished work, and I hadn’t even read it over. I wasn’t entering to try and achieve anything – I was just being sleepy and impulsive.

However, to my surprise, I made it to the Quarter-Finals of the 2017 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Contest. Of course, I didn’t get any further – it would have been wholly unfair since I didn’t try at all – but that was enough to give me a little bit of confidence in my competence.

I shelled out a little extra money, then, to see my judge’s feedback. More assuring than anything was that I seemed to be an accurate critic of my own work. I scored lower in the parts that I had not worked at. However, I scored 9/10s for Concept, Originality, and Theme. There wasn’t an outcome that could have made me happier than that.

Over the past year, I have received lovely comments from people who stumble upon my stories, wonderful critique from friends, and today I just wanted to make a little post saying how wonderful that is. It makes me want to try harder.