The 3AM Challenge - The One That Got Away

This was an absolute belter of a challenge, and I can't believe that I have been so busy with other commitments that I couldn't engage more with it.

My musings

Something I've noticed: nobody wrote happy dreams, did they? Our collective psyche seems to be rich with gloom and filth 😁

My entries entry

I made ONE measly entry to this challenge! ONE! I could have made a dozen, easy!

Here it is, if you haven't already seen it:

I thought I'd made two, but I must have made a mistake when submitting the other one. It was originally a microfiction story I wrote. I re-worked it specifically for this challenge, but it's not showing up in my entries. I didn't spot this until the deadline had already past. Here it is:

See, I even put it in the subtitle!

I could have sworn I ticked the "submit to challenge" box.

Ah, well. What's done is done, I suppose, but you cannot imagine how hard I kicked myself about that when I realised. I mean, okay, sure, it might not have placed anyway, but it's definitely not going to now, is it?

Others that should have made it

I had every intention of re-working this one to enter as well 👇 I didn't manage to make time to do it, and that's on me.

I love deadlines. I love the whooshing noise they make as they go by.

- Douglas Adams

I had bags and bags of material to work with. For one, like a lot of people, my own dreams can be pretty odd at times. This one 👇 was based on a weird dream I had:

This one 👇 is an actual dream of mine. I haven't had this dream for years, and I'd forgotten it until Lana V Lynx reminded me about it with her piece about gum. I wrote this after the challenge closed, because I am basically biologically a muppet:

I've got a catalogue of nearly twenty stories all based around a dream world and a predatory woman who stalks through it. I think there are several in here that I could have re-worked for the challenge:

More musings

I really hope Vocal will give us another dream-based challenge at some point. It's such rich ground, ripe for mining. Brains are unbelievably weird and wonderful. Even the people who say they struggle to come up with ideas are usually able to describe some really bizarre things they came up with while sleeping. Our minds are more elastic and bonkers than we give them credit for. Dreams are proof of this. Sometimes, we just need to get out of our own way.

That's definitely true for me. I regret that I didn't grab this challenge with both hands and jump in with both feet, and paint a wordy picture with whatever contortionist limb I might have had spare... I think some of that regret is because I have hardly entered any challenges this year. This was one that sang to me. In my bones, I felt like it was a nifty catalyst. I could have really poured myself into it, and something cool might have poured back out.

But there is this: the reason I didn't enter was because I previously made a commitment, and I made that commitment a firm priority. That I don't regret one jot. I've written a micro every day for 172 days. I'm dead pleased with that! I'm glad I prioritised my daily story project. If something had to give, it sure as shit wasn't going to be that. I could be bashed up in a hospital bed with every limb in plaster, and I'd still be croakily dictating the next story into my phone. (Ha! I did fall down the stairs last week, as it happens. I'm fine, btw.)

I'm determined, though, next time a shiny thing catches my attention, to make time to go after it. Who knows where it might lead? This underlines to me that all the entries that don't place aren't failures. This is failure, the not participating and kicking yourself over it. The shots you don't take. It's a cliche, sure, but it's a cliche for a reason!

If you entered, well done. Are you proud of your entry? Is it the best you could do? Count it as a success whether it places or not, and keep writing. And if I haven't already read your entry, please link to it in the comments!

Shout-outs

Here's a few entries I enjoyed (yes, there are two from Hannah Moore, she's just that good, cry about it):

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Thank you for reading! The money Vocal tosses in my hat as payment for your attention will be put to good use. I intend to hire a Potato Butler to deep fry my potatoes for me. This is not a euphemism.