As has been announced by Big Finish,  my story “Landbound” was selected for the 2017 Paul Spragg memorial competition. It will be released in audio form in December.

It’s important to note that the point of the exercise is to honour Paul Spragg, a Big Finish employee who passed away at a much too young age. He was obviously beloved by his co-workers and by all accounts was a great human being. Paul believed in nurturing new talent, hence the decision by Big Finish to open the doors in the form of this competition. It’s taken a huge amount of work on their part. Imagine the time it must take to review nearly 1,000 story concepts and narrow the field to a half dozen finalists.

As for me, it’s been an interesting journey. I just checked my fanfiction.net profile and was surprised to see that I posted my first fanfic six years ago. I’d have sworn it was less time than that. Writing fanfiction is a wonderful opportunity to  grow as a writer while meeting and supporting and being supported by fellow writers. At some point, I started to feel I was “ready”, and began submitting stories for publication. Two were rejected, the third has been in consideration for some eleven months, and then there was this year’s Paul Spragg competition. I had no serious expectation that my story concept would be selected and was absolutely gobsmacked when I got the email from Big Finish.

What I’m taking away from the experience is a couple of things. This was the first time working with an editor and it was a wonderful experience. Ian Atkins had some great ideas for how to polish the story and trim it to the required length. He helped me to better appreciate the importance of providing characters with clear motivation, for instance. There was one scene in particular that broke my heart to cut. Ian liked it as well, but pointed out that it didn’t actually move the plot forward, so it could go. It went. And all things considered, the story is better for it.

The second take away is how wonderful the community has been. I’ve received all sorts of congratulations from friends and strangers alike. It’s very heartening.

If you haven’t heard of Big Finish, by all means check them out. Though they’re likely best known for their Doctor Who audio dramas, they also produce dramas for everything from H.G. Wells to Sherlock Holmes to the Prisoner to King Lear. They’ve been expanding their output while somehow improving the quality of their productions. They are very good and well worth exploring. The short trips range, of which Landbound will be a part, are short stories narrated usually by a single actor. Again, there are some real gems here. I’m particularly taken with “Falling“, a lovely first Doctor story that features his companion Polly.

I’ll post a link here when the story is released. Hope you enjoy it.