It’s been an interesting past week, having entered and been short-listed in the Australian Writer’s Centre inaugural 49-word short story competition here in Perth.

Posing in bookshop aisles: Harder than you think. And look out for weird photobomber guys, too

Their publicity arm is certainly active, with this article in last weekend’s Sunday Times covering the finalists.

How I wish there was an internationally recognised signal for “Dude, your hair is looking a bit windswept”, but ah well.

A fun hour of three people posing in innumerable different ways in a bookshop aisle.

This was followed by interest from the local newspaper, Perth Voice, which led to a Tuesday morning photo session, sitting in an overgrown vacant lot, wearing a pith helmet. As you do. Funnily enough, this is the second time this year I’ll be popping up in the local press wearing a pith helmet. I might start a trend. Article.

Writing a 49-word short story was a challenging task. I actually rewrote one of my myriad 100-word stories (must do that microfiction blog topic one day), and it really was an exercise in “kill your darlings” in deciding what had to go for the good of the story, and how to rephrase lines for the same effect while maintaining clarity. Or maybe the orginal version had 51 words of padding.The final edit came to 48 words, allowing me to put in an extra adjective. Luxury!