Of Vietnamese First Names and Mine

https://digitalcitizen.ca/category/writing/This is a writing contest entry I had submitted that did not place. Instead of tweaking and/or submitting to other contests, I have decided not to do this to motivate myself to write more and other content for future contests. I’m not trying to make a living on this, or even earn extra cash, so there’s no need to judge value based on how much time I put into it. If anything, it’s only about minimizing losses of contest entry fees to what’s been “proven” to be “unworthy” of recognition. :)

I hope you like it. 2000 word limit 2021 CBC Nonfiction contest.

Continue reading

Karmic Rebalance

https://digitalcitizen.ca/category/writing/Today, I share another piece of micro writing that didn’t place in a contest. That’s fine. Like any writer, I expect a whole ton of these before success. These aren’t even manuscripts with many rejections. However, I will say this about this piece inspired by short stories in David Eagleman’s Sum about the afterlife (my favourite fiction book at this time), I might have eliminated myself in having provided a 300 word story in a contest where words in the title might have counted towards that 300 total. It wasn’t clear but I saw a note about that in some after contest promotional material after I had submitted my entry. While I could have saved it to use again, I have decided to move on and write more stories instead. Which is another thing. This isn’t so much a traditional story with arc as the short-listed stories actually were like, so I might not have given this story much of a chance even if it were accepted on word count. But I had a grand old time thinking up of the concept, then trying to describe it sufficiently fully within 300 words so I think the reader would get the same picture I had in mind. Furthermore, I had enough words left to plant a question for the reader to ponder at the end that they could, in theory, apply to the rest of their life to be influenced by my story. Enjoy! 🙂

Continue reading

How to Fix the Economy in 300 Words

https://digitalcitizen.ca/category/writing/That’s right. That’s what the title says. And that’s what the italicized text below describe. For those who think I’m too detailed and don’t look at the big picture, it’s because they only see me where I have to be the one to make things happen, and you can’t do that without details. You can’t build a car on concepts and vague ideas, in other words. For them, this should eliminate any of that. Fixing the economy, a huge problem, really only comes down to the 300 words below, which I could summarize in a sentence if I need to. For this, I’m sure many of these people who think I’m too much in the details will claim I’m naive. But you know what? I’ve gone through and grilled myself on the details of all this, what it would take to make it happen, and I’ve not been able to convince myself otherwise in the few years I’ve thought about this. If they really thought I were naive, I’ve got two words for them. Bring it! Try to win an argument against me on it! Otherwise, enjoy and let me know your thoughts if you were up to it!

Continue reading