Who is Geoff Holme?

Geoff Holme, winner of Micro Bookends 1.03, would like to extend his gratitude for all your kind words and congratulations following his win. Geoff has very kindly agreed to judge this week’s contest so I’d listen up (especially the bit where he says he’s a stickler for punctuation). Follow him on Twitter, read his winning story here, then listen to what he has to say:

I live in West Sussex (that’s England, y’all!), about 200 metres from the “English” Channel. If I hadn’t waited until MB 1.03 to win, I could have declared my proclivity for procrastination without seeming to be a plagiarist; unlike Carlos, however, looming deadlines give me palpitations. Currently unemployed, so free to spend most of my time entering flash fiction contests in an effort to improve my writing – seems to have paid off! Pedant, stickler for punctuation, vegetarian. Oh, also quite tall (see photo).

So, great story. How did you get there from the prompt and bookends? I like to play with words, so “MEAT” led me to “ME AT…”. I know a little about The Amish from “Witness” and a couple of documentaries on TV. I wondered who might have taken the photo, given that Amish people don’t go in for that kind of thing.

100 words ain’t many. How do you fit a story into so few words? Often, I just stick to dialogue. For Micro Bookends, I see what I can do creatively with the opening word – that gives me a start; the closing word gives me something to work towards. I fill out the middle with verbiage, then prune drastically. Sometimes, by accident, I’m left with the spaces that the reader has to fill in to complete the story.

Why do you like flash fiction? It’s imposes limits and prevents me running off at the mouth. Plus, I can produce something I’m happy with in a relatively short timeframe. I don’t read quickly – can’t skim, need to digest every word – so flash fiction is a nice easy read for me.

Been writing long? A friend invited me to a monthly writers’ group just over a year ago; then I added a fortnightly group in the summer. At the end of September, I discovered flash fiction contests on the web and have been trying to enter as often as I can.

You write anything else? I adapted a pantomime that was performed several years back; I have three unfinished pantomimes of my own as WIPs. Procrastination…

Any advice for other flash writers? I think it would be arrogant for a relative novice to offer advice… so here goes. Read a lot, write a lot, check out the work of the winners of online contests – not necessarily mine! I think that the only way to improve is to keep plugging away. Oh, and read through your work several times before submitting, to avoid silly miskates!

Any interesting writerly projects in the pipeline? Just more flash fiction. And those unfinished pantos.

I just finished reading a book. Can you recommend another? I find that quite lot of amateur flash fiction writers don’t punctuate well which really distracts me from appreciating what they are trying to convey. I’m no expert, so I bought Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss – a humorous overview of this topic.