Competitions / Concursos

Some days ago my friend Esteve told me about a short stories' writing competition. He was looking for design competitions for Xavi and him to take part in and he came across it. It's a quite important one, that has had a bunch of relatively known winners. I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to give it a shot. I don't expect to win -it would be awesome though, the winner takes 6.000€- but entering a competition with really good writers involved is a challenge I'd like to take up. 

I've been working on it since Friday and in two and a half days I've managed to write a short story. Well, its first draft, but you know what I'm talking about. Surprisingly enough I haven't had much problems to fit in the 10-page limit. Maybe writing the fables has been useful for this purpose, as I've always had problems with word counts. Just to put an example I had to ask for an extension for my MA's final project. It ended up being roughly twice as long as it was supposed to be. Anyway, the deadline's on mid June so I have plenty of time to trim, polish and embellish the story... or to write a new one altogether. Besides, it's the first time I've been seriously writing in Spanish in a while. Not that I have lost my ability -if I ever had any of that- but it's been funny to realise how I did some misspelling mistakes I thought I had left behind long ago.

Concerning the other projects... I've got to talk with Xavi about the fables' illustrations and I have scheduled a Skype meeting with Esteve for this evening to work on Old Folks. We've been rambling a bit and we need to focus to push the project forward. I have some other ideas in mind for other projects, but I'll try to hold them as long as possible. Too many projects mean never finishing anything and, after all, it doesn't matter how hard or for how long you work if you never have a properly finished work in your hands. That's something that's taken a while for me to realise -and as far as I know it's quite common- but that I'll try to keep in mind.

Fa uns quants dies el meu amic Esteve em va parlar d'uns premis de relat curt. Estava buscant concursos de disseny per en Xavi i per ell i el va trobar. És bastant important i ha tingut uns quants guanyadors relativament coneguts, de manera que vaig pensar que no seria mala idea intentar-ho. No espero gunyar -però seria genial, el primer premi és de 6.000€- però entrar en una competició amb escriptors realment bons és un repte que m'agradaria assumir.

Hi he estat treballant des de divendres i en dos dies i mig he aconseguite escriure un relat. Bé, és un primer esborrany, però ja sabeu què vull dir. Estic sorprès de no haver tingut gaires problemes per encabir-lo en el límit de 10 pàgines. Potser escriure les faules ha estat útil, perquè sempre havia tingut problemes amb les limitacions d'espai. Només per posar un exemple, vaig haver de demanar una extensió pel meu projecte de final de màster. Va acabar sent més o menys el doble de llarg del que teòricament havia de ser. Sigui com sigui, la data límit és a mitjans de juny de manera que tinc moltíssim temps per retallar, polir i embellir la història... o per escriure'n una de completament nova. A part de tot això, és el primer cop en molt de temps que em poso a escriure en castellà seriosament. No és que hagi perdut la meva habilitat -si és que mai n'havia tingut- però ha sigut divertit veure com faig errades que creia haver deixat enrere fa anys i panys.

Pel que fa als altres projectes... he de parlar amb en Xavi de les il·lustracions de les faules i he programat una reunió per Skype amb l'Esteve per aquest vespre per treballar en els Old Folks. Hem divagat una mica i necessitem centrar-nos per tirar endavant el projecte. Tinc altres idees al cap, per altres projectes, però intentaré mantenir-les només com a idees tant com pugui. Massa projectes volen dir que mai acabes res i, al cap i a la fi, no importa com de dur treballis si mai tens una obra acabada a les teves mans. És quelcom de què he trigat a adonar-me -i que jo sàpiga és bastant comú- però que intentaré recordar.

Surprise! A finished project / Sorpresa! Un projecte acabat

I had to keep it in secret for a while but it's about time to make an announcement. It's a nice coincidence that today, April 2, is the anniversary of Hans Christian Andersen's birth.

I spent the past month writing short stories. I started writing them for myself, but after a while I thought "hey, you're a writer, you're not supposed to keep your work for yourself unless you don't want to make a living on it". It's my first attempt at writing fables -short tales featuring animals and with a moral message- but I'm quite satisfied. In addition to that, I found it was a good way to start and actually finish a project in a relatively short period of time. After all, having it actually done is one of the first writing/creating tips on any list, and that's what I did. While I was about to write the the last fable I thought any good fable compilation needs some good illustrations, so asked my long-time associate Xavier Ren if he'd like to provide them. He accepted, so although we still don't have a publishing date because there's work left to do, I can tell you it will be something else than "only" text.

The compilation, entitled Wildlife, contains five fables. It will most probably be published only in electronic format via Amazon and a few other plaftorms but doing a short-run printed version is not completely out of the table. I'll keep you informed about it. And that's pretty much it, such a short post for something so important!

PS. I forgot to say I wrote the fables in Catalan, but I'll translate them into Spanish and English too.

Ho he hagut de mantenir en secret un temps, però és hora d'anunciar una cosa. És una feliç casualitat que avui, 2 d'abril, sigui l'aniversari del naixement de Hans Christian Andersen.

Em vaig passar la meitat del mes passat escrivint històries curtes. Vaig començar escrivint-les per mi, però després vaig pensar "ei, ets escriptor, se suposa que no t'ho has de quedar tot per tu a no ser que no t'hi vulguis guanyar la vida". És la meva primera experiència escrivint faules -contes curts protagonitzats per animals i amb moralina- però n'estic bastant satisfet. A més, vaig veure que era una bona manera de començar i acabar un projecte en un periode de temps relativament curt. Al cap i a la fi, acabar és un dels primers punts de qualsevol llista de consells d'escriptura/creatius. Quan era a punt d'escriure la darrera faula vaig pensar que qualsevol bon recull té bones il·lustracions, de manera que vaig preguntar a en Xavier Ren si li agradaria fer-les. Va acceptar, així que tot i que encara no tenim data de publicació perquè queda feina a fer, us puc dir que serà quelcom més que "només" text.

El recull, titulat Vida Salvatge, conté cinc faules. Segurament es publicarà només en format electrònic via Amazon i d'altres plataformes, però fer una edició física de tirada limitada no està completament descartat. Us mantindré informats. I això és tot, un post molt curt per una cosa tan important!

PD. Havia oblidat que he escrit les faules en català, però també les traduïré al castellà i a l'anglès.