This week I submitted a short story to the Bridport Prize, a highly respected writing competition.

It's a speculative fiction story I wrote seven years ago, but that feels more timely now than ever. It's about the start that young people get in life, the responsibility of adults to pass on a better world, and the power of money to constrain and control us all.

The long list is announced in September, so there's a lot of waiting. And, as can be seen from the anthologies published of previous entries, the standard is high and competition will be fierce.

It's perfectly understandable that it takes months to judge when there are so many entires. In fact, it's amazing to be able to do it in only 3ish months.

But we authors aren't good at waiting to be judged or given notes.

Given the odds of success, maybe literary competitions should just send out an email two days later saying "Sorry but your entry has not been selected this time [etc]". Then for the one person who wins they send an email three months later saying "Terribly sorry, you were sent an email by mistake three months ago. Actually you've won!" 😂

Anyway, until that system is adopted, I'll just have to sit and wait...