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- Can you please tell us about you? Where do you live and how is your daily life? I live in Bath, a small city in England. I recently moved from London and Bath is great, much less busy than London but still with loads of cool things to do and surrounded by the countryside. I work as the Executive Assistant to the CEO at a technology company and write in m spare time.
- When did you start writing? How often do you write? We want to learn all about your writing life! I have always loved writing. When I was a child I would write stories about my toys, making up little adventures for them. Recently, I've been finding it hard to find the time to write so I started to challenge myself to write more frequently in my blog (http://rinspo.wordpress.com) and short stories and poetry.
- How did you feel when you learned that you won The London Independent Story Prize? How does it
feel to have your work recognised?
I was super happy when I heard I'd won. My writing is always very personal and I feel quite vulnerable putting it out there, so I was nervous as to how it would be received or what people would think. It's good encouragement to keep going and putting myself and my stories out there. One of my favourite poets (Nayyriah Waheed - https://twitter.com/nayyirahwaheed?) wrote a poem that basically says, write the things you are most afraid to write - and that's what I try to do.
- What's the best thing and the hardest thing about writing a Flash-Fiction? It's a challenge, to tell a whole story but with not very many words. I used to love writing really long descriptions and would challenge myself to describe something really mundane and bring it to life, like a boiling kettle. Now I'm challenging myself to tell a whole story, full of emotions, in as few words as possible.
- How did you come up with the idea for your LISP selected story? Is there a story behind your story? And how long have you been working on it?
It is, essentially, a true story. It's probably a few events that happened mixed together a bit, but is all true. It's something I'd been thinking about for a while. I like to write about true events, especially difficult ones because it helps me to process them and understand my feelings, and ultimately learn from them.
- Can you please give us a few tips about writing a 300-word flash-fiction story? Don't worry about the word limit. Think about what you want to say and get those points down first. You can go back and add or remove details after that.
- What's the best thing about writing competitions? I love a deadline. In work, I am very focused, but when it comes to writing I can be less so. It's also a great opportunity to meet other writers and gain new experiences.
-Lastly, do you recommend the writers to give it a go on flash fiction story and LISP?
Yes. Do it. Having to be so concise will help you to pull out the really good and important parts of your story.
