Monday, April 22, 2013

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.

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