It's that time again!

How did I not realise this? Today entries open for the BNZ Katherine Mansfield Awards, which last year I spent three months looking forward to — I'd started writing a story for it in March.

And now I have no short stories "on the go" except for my little one about a mouse which I actually quite like, but is probably more suited to publication in a magazine than to winning a competition. It's not clever enough or beautifully-written enough for a competition.

So now, to start from scratch: a beautifully-written, clever story about something deep and meaningful with some subtle metaphors and imagery thrown in for good measure. Maybe something Mansfieldesque, in fact.

Ooh! I now totally want to slyly reference Mansfield in my story. I love literary allusions in stories, and this would be pretty apt (now I just need to think of a story idea). I even know the exact Mansfieldian metaphor that I'd refer to. Luckily for me, I have my Complete short stories of Katherine Mansfield sitting on my bookshelf, just waiting to be plagiarised.

...I'm not actually going to plagiarise anything. Or steal any ideas from her stories, or anything like that.

But when I've found a story idea and started writing, I might try to slip in an allusion to one of Mansfield's stories. Just to see if they pick it up.