story writing

A Place: A Micro-Story

Jo Caddy

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Thanks to Fiona M. Jones for her latest submission “A Place’. A charming micro-story about the adventures children find in ordinary places.

Fiona M. Jones is a regular contributor to Mum Life Stories, some of her titles include ‘Mud‘ & ‘Tiny Green Apples‘. She is a part-time teacher, a parent, and a spare-time writer, with work recently published by Folded Word, Buckshot Magazine and Silver Pen.

She is also one of the judges for our Micro-Fiction Competition.

She lives with her husband and 2 sons (aged 15 & 17) in Fife, Scotland, where she works, writes & ministers. You can read more about Fiona here, in her Mum Life Success Story.

You can also follow Fiona on Twitter or Linkedin
Photo Credit: Raghu Nayyar on Unsplash

This page contains affiliate links which may earn me a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Affiliate links are how I keep this blog running, thank you.

Going Short book coverGoing Short: An Invitation to Flash Fiction by Nancy Stohlman

A PLACE

“Mummy, we’ve seen a place and we have to go there,” they tell me in that tone of unanswerable firmness which I know they’ve copied from me but still I can’t resist.
A “place” is never an amusement park or a restaurant or any crowded area. It is over hills or under trees, in among rocks through mud beside water. We’re going on a bear hunt, we’re setting out on an Expotition, we’re traversing Middle Earth; and, come what may, we’re not coming back with clean clothes or dry socks.
This particular place is a narrow deep-forested valley below the A92 to Kirkcaldy. Embanked dual carriageway turns briefly to bridge and back again in the blink of an eye, but children’s eyes don’t blink much, and they’ve made their decision.
I parked, awkwardly, in a layby, and we went there.
We followed overgrowing paths among damp greenery and welly-sucking puddles. We found a wooden bridge across the stream, and we walked under the massive concrete struts of the traffic-roaring road. We scrambled up dust and small scree to a half-hidden ledge of ground that made a perfect lookout point, and we defended with imaginary fire-power. And we discovered a fallen tree clutching odd pieces of brickwork, in its newly-bared roots as though it had accidentally swallowed a wall half a century ago.
And I laundered once more the clothes and cleaned the mud off boots, hoping that nothing in life will ever wash away the patterns of early habit—that trees and sky and running water will always remain the backdrop in my children’s minds, giving them peace when life gets turbulent.

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Brevity: A Flash Fiction Handbook by David Galef

If you’d like to submit a story of your own, please visit our submissions page, or enjoy reading more of our Flash Fiction HERE.

If you’re a writer, why not enter our Micro-Fiction Writing Competition?

Micro Fiction writing competition

Thanks

Thank you for reading this blog. If you would like to keep up to date with all our latest news, stories and promos (including giveaways and writing competitions), please sign up to our mailing list HERE, or fill in the form below. You’ll also receive a FREE Ebook exclusive to our email subscribers.

Get your FREE Ebook

Accomplish more IN a fraction of the time

The pace and intensity of our lives, both at work and at home, leave many of us feeling like a person riding a frantically galloping horse. Our day-to-day incessant busyness — too much to do and not enough time.

With this ebook you will learn to approach your days in another way, reducing stress and getting results through prioritizing, leveraging and focus!

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Micro Fiction Writing Competition: Round 4 – Cash Prizes!

Jo Caddy

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*UPDATE: Round 5 has begun. Details HERE!*

Our first three Micro Fiction Writing Competitions have been a wonderful success and we were very impressed by the quality of entrants. We are getting very excited about the anthology and the quality of stories that will be featured. The winners and shortlist for round 3 have been published (you can read the results HERE) and now it’s on to round 4.
If you fancy yourself a bit of a writer and enjoy telling a tale then why not have a go at this competition. You could score yourself $50 (AUD) for first place or $20 (AUD) for 2nd or 3rd place, plus the top 10 shortlisted stories, including the 3 winners (from 6 competitions, so 60 stories in total) will be featured in an anthology to be published by the end of 2020.

Competition opens on the 14th of April

Photo by Florian Klauer on Unsplash

This page contains affiliate links which may earn me a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Affiliate links are how I keep this blog running, thank you.

9780393352351

FLASH: Writing the very short story by John Dufresne

Themes

This Competition is the fourth of 6 Micro-Fiction Writing Competitions run over the next year, ending with an anthology publication sometime between July and November 2020 (exact dates will be known closer to the time). Each competition will have a slightly different theme but revolve around the idea of Motherhood. The 6 different sub-themes are:

  1. Mother (November/December ’19 COMPLETED)
  2. GrandMother (January ’20 COMPLETED)
  3. Single Mother (February/March ’20 COMPLETED)
  4. Step-Mother (CURRENT)
  5. Great GrandMother
  6. Foster Mother

The comps will be run in this order and competition start and finish dates will be released at the end of each preceding competition. Competitions will run for 10 days (unless extended), judging for 2 weeks, at the commencement of which, the winners will be announced!

Sign up to our mailing list to be notified when a new competition has begun.

tray with notepad

Rustic/Farmhouse Serving Tray (Buy it Now)

This Months Competition

This month’s theme is ‘Step-Mother’ (April ’20) and it can be interpreted any way you like. You don’t have to include the words ‘Step-Mother’ but it must be clear your story is about, you guessed it…a Step-Mother.

Whilst I’d love to keep the competition free to enter, administration costs have started to take their toll on my bank account and it’s become necessary to charge a very small fee (to cover costs) of just $2 AUD. I do lose a bit of that to Paypal fees so what I’m getting is very minimal and doesn’t even completely cover the prize money that I give away so please don’t put off by the small entry cost as you are helping contribute to your’s or someone else’s success and publication as an author. A noble deed indeed!
Please read the competition rules below and then follow the link to our competition T & C’s where there will be an entry form to fill in with your story. Good Luck!

Competition Rules and Guidelines

‘Step-Mother’ Competition Dates: April 14th 2020 – April 24th 2020 (Extended till 14th May) @ midnight AEST. Judging will commence on the 25th of April (Extended till the 15th of May) 2020, with the shortlist and winners being announced on the 8th of May (Extended till the 25th of May) 2020.

Open to: Worldwide (but must be written in English), 16 years or older.

Rules:

  1. 500 words or less.
  2. Narrative Fiction (no poetry please).
  3. Must be about a Step-Mother.
  4. No gratuitous violence, sexual content, blood & gore or profanity.
  5. Must agree to the T & C’s.
  6. Your story must not already be published anywhere else.
  7. The $2 AUD entry fee must be paid via Paypal to mumlifestories@gmail.com and must clear before the competition end date in order for your entry to qualify. Please also insure you enter the email address you use for PayPal into the section provided on the entry form so we can match your payment to your entry.

Submission:

  1. Story to be typed in a doc, docx, pdf, rtf or txt formatted document.
  2. 12 point, Times New Roman or Georgia Text.
  3. Title of story should appear at the top of the document and in the file name.
  4. Your name should not appear on the document (submissions will be read blind so if your name is on the doc it will not be accepted).
  5. Click HERE to go to the form where you can attach your story file, or go to the T & C’s page and enter there.

Judging:

There will be 2 judges, myself and one of our regular story contributors Fiona M. Jones.

  1. Stories will be read ‘blind’ without author names attached so as to avoid bias.
  2. We will not be giving feedback on stories at this point in time, apart from general opinions on the winning entries that will be published on the blog.
  3. While our opinions and personal taste will play a small role in the judging, we will be looking at the structure, form, originality and storytelling technique of each submission.
  4. We both have different tastes but will work together, discussing all elements of the story to come up with 10 stories for the shortlist and then 3 winners.
  5. All decisions are final and will not be open to discussion.

You can read more about the judges on our ‘About‘ page.

Prizes:

1st Place – $50 (AUD), published on mumlifestories.com & in anthology + a printed copy of the anthology + digital copy of the anthology.

2nd Place – $20 (AUD), published on mumlifestories.com & in anthology + digital copy of the anthology.

3rd Place – $20 (AUD), published on mumlifestories.com & in anthology + digital copy of the anthology

Shortlist (Top 10) – Published in anthology + digital copy of the anthology

Submit:

Click HERE to go to the entry form.

Go to the T & C’s page.

Sign up to mailing list to get a reminder when the competition is about to close & keep informed of upcoming competitions, plus receive a FREE Ebook.

Good Luck and Have Fun Writing!

413QErUcQ5L

Writing Flash – How to craft & publish flash fiction for a booming market (Kindle Edition)

Get your FREE Ebook

Accomplish more IN a fraction of the time

The pace and intensity of our lives, both at work and at home, leave many of us feeling like a person riding a frantically galloping horse. Our day-to-day incessant busyness — too much to do and not enough time.

With this ebook you will learn to approach your days in another way, reducing stress and getting results through prioritizing, leveraging and focus!

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Micro Fiction Writing Competition Round 3: Deadline extended

Jo Caddy

*PLEASE NOTE: THIS COMPETITION HAS ENDED AND WINNERS HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED. CLICK HERE FOR INFO ON THE NEXT ROUND STARTING SOON*

 

Once again we are extending the submission deadline for our micro-Fiction writing competition, due to insufficient submissions. The new deadline is the 23rd of March so you have a few more weeks to get your stories in.

I understand that the $2 entry fee may put people off and whilst I’d love to keep the entry free, I’m not sure my bank account will thank me for it. The entry fee will help pay for the prize money, but what’s left has to come from my own pocket, which I’m more than willing to do as it’s a pleasure to hear such excitement from writers when their stories are chosen for a prize and publication. Your very helpful contribution of a small entry fee will help me to keep these competitions running and if we get enough from one competition, we can make the next one free. See the original post for details on how to enter HERE

If you’d like to be reminded when the competition is ending and when a new one begins please sign up to our mailing list below. You’ll also be kept up to date with all our latest news, stories and promos including giveaways and writing competitions, plus receive a FREE Ebook exclusive to email subscribers.

 

Alternatively, go to our COMPETITIONS page for info on the latest competitions!

Get your FREE Ebook

Accomplish more IN a fraction of the time

The pace and intensity of our lives, both at work and at home, leave many of us feeling like a person riding a frantically galloping horse. Our day-to-day incessant busyness — too much to do and not enough time.

With this ebook you will learn to approach your days in another way, reducing stress and getting results through prioritizing, leveraging and focus!

ebook button

il_1588xN.2168034374_b8kp

Kids Personalised Easter Baskets

 

 

 

 

Micro Fiction Writing Competition: Round 3 – Cash Prizes!

Jo Caddy

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*PLEASE NOTE: THIS COMPETITION HAS ENDED AND WINNERS HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED. CLICK HERE FOR INFO ON OUR NEXT ROUND STARTING SOON*

 

Our first two Micro Fiction Writing Competitions have been a wonderful success and we were very impressed by the quality of entrants. We are getting very excited about the anthology and the quality of stories that will be featured. The winners and shortlist for round 2 have been published (you can read the results HERE) and now it’s on to round 3.
If you fancy yourself a bit of a writer and enjoy telling a tale then why not have a go at this competition. You could score yourself $50 (AUD) for first place or $20 (AUD) for 2nd or 3rd place, plus the top 10 shortlisted stories, including the 3 winners (from 6 competitions, so 60 stories in total) will be featured in an anthology to be published by the end of 2020.

Competition opens on the 24th of February

Photo by Florian Klauer on Unsplash

This page contains affiliate links which may earn me a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Affiliate links are how I keep this blog running, thank you.

9780393352351

FLASH: Writing the very short story by John Dufresne

Themes

This Competition is the second of 6 Micro-Fiction Writing Competitions run over the next year, ending with an anthology publication sometime between July and November 2020 (exact dates will be known closer to the time). Each competition will have a slightly different theme but revolve around the idea of Motherhood. The 6 different sub-themes are:

  1. Mother (November/December ’19 COMPLETED)
  2. GrandMother (January ’20 COMPLETED)
  3. Single Mother (February/March ’20 CURRENT)
  4. Step Mother
  5. Great GrandMother
  6. Foster Mother

The comps will be run in this order and competition start and finish dates will be released at the end of each preceding competition. Competitions will run for 10 days (unless extended), judging for 2 weeks, at the commencement of which, the winners will be announced!

Sign up to our mailing list to be notified when a new competition has begun.

il_1588xN.2168034374_b8kp

Kids Personalised Easter Basket

This Months Competition

This month’s theme is ‘Single Mother’ (February ’20) and it can be interpreted any way you like. You don’t have to include the words ‘Single Mother’ but it must be clear your story is about, you guessed it…a Single Mother (biological, adoptive or otherwise).

We managed to keep the last two months of submissions free to enter, but administration costs have started to take their toll on our founder’s bank account and it’s become necessary to charge a very small fee (to cover costs) of just $2 AUD.

Please read the competition rules below and then follow the link to our competition T & C’s where there will be an entry form to fill in with your story. Good Luck!

Competition Rules and Guidelines

‘Single Mother’ Competition Dates: February 24th 2020 – March 2nd (extended to 23rd March), 2020 @ midnight AEST. Judging will commence on the 3rd of March (extended to the 24th of March), with the shortlist and winners being announced on the 4th of April.

Open to: Worldwide (but must be written in English), 16 years or older.

Rules:

  1. 500 words or less.
  2. Narrative Fiction (no poetry please).
  3. Must be about a Single Mother (biological or adoptive).
  4. No gratuitous violence, sexual content, blood & gore or profanity.
  5. Must agree to the T & C’s.
  6. Your story must not already be published anywhere else.
  7. The $2 AUD entry fee must be paid via Paypal to mumlifestories@gmail.com and must clear before the competition end date in order for your entry to qualify. Please also insure you enter the email address you use for PayPal into the section provided on the entry form so we can match your payment to your entry.

Submission:

  1. Story to be typed in a doc, docx, pdf, rtf or txt formatted document.
  2. 12 point, Times New Roman or Georgia Text.
  3. Title of story should appear at the top of the document and in the file name.
  4. Your name should not appear on the document (submissions will be read blind so if your name is on the doc it will not be accepted).
  5. Click HERE to go to the form where you can attach your story file, or go to the T & C’s page and enter there.

Judging:

There will be 2 judges, myself and one of our regular story contributors Fiona M. Jones.

  1. Stories will be read ‘blind’ without author names attached so as to avoid bias.
  2. We will not be giving feedback on stories at this point in time, apart from general opinions on the winning entries that will be published on the blog.
  3. While our opinions and personal taste will play a small role in the judging, we will be looking at the structure, form, originality and storytelling technique of each submission.
  4. We both have different tastes but will work together, discussing all elements of the story to come up with 10 stories for the shortlist and then 3 winners.
  5. All decisions are final and will not be open to discussion.

You can read more about the judges on our ‘About‘ page.

Prizes:

1st Place – $50 (AUD), published on mumlifestories.com & in anthology + a printed copy of the anthology + digital copy of the anthology.

2nd Place – $20 (AUD), published on mumlifestories.com & in anthology + digital copy of the anthology.

3rd Place – $20 (AUD), published on mumlifestories.com & in anthology + digital copy of the anthology

Shortlist (Top 10) – Published in anthology + digital copy of the anthology

Submit:

Click HERE to go to the entry form.

Go to the T & C’s page.

Sign up to mailing list to get a reminder when the competition is about to close & keep informed of upcoming competitions, plus receive a FREE Ebook.

Good Luck and Have Fun Writing!

413QErUcQ5L

Writing Flash – How to craft & publish flash fiction for a booming market (Kindle Edition)

Get your FREE Ebook

Accomplish more IN a fraction of the time

The pace and intensity of our lives, both at work and at home, leave many of us feeling like a person riding a frantically galloping horse. Our day-to-day incessant busyness — too much to do and not enough time.

With this ebook you will learn to approach your days in another way, reducing stress and getting results through prioritizing, leveraging and focus!

ebook button

Micro Fiction Writing Competition Round 2: Deadline extended

Jo Caddy

*Please note: This competition has now ended. Please visit our competitions page for info on our current comp. Please sign up to our mailing list at the bottom of this page to keep informed of new competitions starting*

Once again we are extending the submission deadline for our micro fiction writing competition. The new deadline is the 10th of February so you have a couple more weeks to get your stories in.

Whilst the entries we have are of good quality, there just isn’t enough entries for ethical competition to take place. A lot of our stories are very similar also and centre around this idea of ‘ancient grandmothers’ either dead already or on their deathbeds. I expected this from the theme ‘Great grandmother’ but for this theme ‘Grandmother’ I’d really love to see some more stories about women in their prime, wise women, adventurous women, inspiring women.

Let’s see some stories about life lessons learned or taught, about overcoming obstacles, about chasing dreams, about mentors and matriarchs etc etc. Inspire us, motivate us, teach us!

I hope that was a good pep talk and didn’t put anyone off, haha. I’m loving all these stories but I want to see more. Get those stories in!

See the original post for details on how to enter HERE

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If you’d like to be reminded when the competition is ending and when a new one begins please sign up to our mailing list below. You’ll also be kept up to date with all our latest news, stories and promos including giveaways and writing competitions, plus receive a FREE Ebook exclusive to email subscribers.

 

Alternatively, go to our COMPETITIONS page for info on the latest competitions!

Get your FREE Ebook

Accomplish more IN a fraction of the time

The pace and intensity of our lives, both at work and at home, leave many of us feeling like a person riding a frantically galloping horse. Our day-to-day incessant busyness — too much to do and not enough time.

With this ebook you will learn to approach your days in another way, reducing stress and getting results through prioritizing, leveraging and focus!

ebook button

Micro Fiction Writing Competition: Round 2 – Cash Prizes!

Jo Caddy

Micro Fiction writing competition

*Please note: This competition has ended. Please visit our competitions page for details of our current competition. Please sign up to our mailing list at the bottom of this page to keep informed of new competitions starting*

Our first Micro Fiction Writing Competition has been a wonderful success and we were very impressed by the quality of entrants. The short list has been published and our top 3 winners have been chosen but the announcement is yet to go out, so stay tuned and check back for that exciting news.

Time for round 2. If you fancy yourself a bit of a writer and enjoy telling a tale then why not have a go at this competition. You could score yourself $50 (AUD) for first place or $20 (AUD) for 2nd or 3rd place, plus the top 10 short-listed stories, including the 3 winners (from 6 competitions, so 60 stories in total) will be featured in an anthology to be published by the end of 2020.

Photo by Florian Klauer on Unsplash

This page contains affiliate links which may earn me a small commission if you click through and make a purchase. Affiliate links are how I keep this blog running, thank you.

Themes

This Competition is the second of 6 Micro Fiction Writing Competitions run over the next year, ending with an anthology publication sometime between July and November 2020 (exact dates will be known closer to the time). Each competition will have a slightly different theme but revolve around the idea of Motherhood. The 6 different sub-themes are:

  1. Mother (November/December ’19 COMPLETED)
  2. GrandMother (February ’20 CURRENT)
  3. Single Mother
  4. Step Mother
  5. Great GrandMother
  6. Foster Mother

The comps will be run in this order and competition start and finish dates will be released at the end of each preceding competition. Competitions will run for 10 days (unless extended), judging for 2 weeks, at the commencement of which, the winners will be announced!

Sign up to our mailing list to be notified when a new competition has begun.

This Months Competition

This month’s theme is ‘Grandmother’ (January ’20) and it can be interpreted any way you like. You don’t have to include the word ‘Grandmother’ but it must be clear your story is about a Grandmother (biological, adoptive or otherwise).

We have decided to keep this months submissions FREE to enter. Consecutive months competitions will incur a $2 entry fee (to cover administration costs).

Please read the competition rules below and then follow the link to our competition T & C’s where there will be an entry form to fill in with your story. Good Luck!

Competition Rules and Guidelines

‘Grandmother’ Competition Dates: January 14th 2020 – January 24th 2020 (extended till 10th February) @ midnight AEST. Judging will commence on the 25th of January (extended till the 11th of February), with the shortlist and winners being announced on the 8th of February (extended till the 20th of February).

Open to: Worldwide (but must be written in English), 16 years or older.

Rules:

  1. 500 words or less.
  2. Narrative Fiction (no poetry please).
  3. Must be about a Mother (biological or adoptive).
  4. No gratuitous violence, sexual content, blood & gore or profanity.
  5. Must agree to the T & C’s.
  6. Your story must not already be published anywhere else.

Submission:

  1. Story to be typed in a doc, docx, pdf, rtf or txt formatted document.
  2. 12 point, Times New Roman or Georgia Text.
  3. Title of story should appear at the top of the document and in the file name.
  4. Your name should not appear on the document (submissions will be read blind so if your name is on the doc it will not be accepted).
  5. Click HERE to go to the form where you can attach your story file, or go to the T & C’s page and enter there.

Judging:

There will be 2 judges, myself and one of our regular story contributors Fiona M. Jones.

  1. Stories will be read ‘blind’ without author names attached so as to avoid bias.
  2. We will not be giving feedback on stories at this point in time, apart from general opinions on the winning entries that will be published on the blog.
  3. While our opinions and personal taste will play a small role in the judging, we will be looking at the structure, form, originality and storytelling technique of each submission.
  4. We both have different tastes but will work together, discussing all elements of the story to come up with 10 stories for the shortlist and then 3 winners.
  5. All decisions are final and will not be open to discussion.

You can read more about the judges on our ‘About‘ page.

Prizes:

1st Place – $50 (AUD), published on mumlifestories.com & in anthology + a printed copy of the anthology + digital copy of anthology.

2nd Place – $20 (AUD), published on mumlifestories.com & in anthology + digital copy of anthology.

3rd Place – $20 (AUD), published on mumlifestories.com & in anthology + digital copy of anthology

Shortlist (Top 10) – Published in anthology + digital copy of anthology

Submit:

Click HERE to go to the entry form.

Go to the T & C’s page.

Sign up to mailing list to get a reminder when the competition is about to close & keep informed of upcoming competitions, plus receive a FREE Ebook.

Alternatively, go to our COMPETITIONS page for info on the latest competitions!

413QErUcQ5L

Writing Flash – How to craft & publish flash fiction for a booming market (Kindle Edition)

Get your FREE Ebook

Accomplish more IN a fraction of the time

The pace and intensity of our lives, both at work and at home, leave many of us feeling like a person riding a frantically galloping horse. Our day-to-day incessant busyness — too much to do and not enough time.

With this ebook you will learn to approach your days in another way, reducing stress and getting results through prioritizing, leveraging and focus!

ebook button