Thanks, one and all, for the congrats and warm wishes on my Writers of the Future win. I’m overwhelmed.
For the curious, the story is called “Gone Black”–far future SF concerning an isolated military supply depot, an alien prisoner of war, and a soldier who may be too inquisitive for his own good . . .
I don’t mind telling you, folks, this one was tough to write. I did a lot of research, wrote a lot of notes, and went through three drafts–the last one following a scathing but dead-on critique from
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(thank you, my friend). I cut some 4,000 words from it, taking it from 20K to 16K, before I finally thought it was fit to see the light of day.
When I got the word last month that the story was a finalist, I did another quick read-through of it, and cringed at some parts. I thought I would be damned lucky to limp into third place.
Just goes to show ya, we writers really are the worst judges of our own stuff.
Anyway, thanks again! Time for me to get back to work.
