Eight years ago, I spent Inauguration Day working on a short story. It was the first round of the 2017 NYC Midnight Short Story Challenge, and I was struggling mightily. I had a week to write a 2,500-word story—a story I could not find.

I was assigned Romance as my genre, but I couldn’t find any romance in my soul. I was angry, fuming about the new president. I didn’t want write happy ever after. I didn’t want to write happy of any kind at all. I wanted to write sad, mad, dark, spooky, scary—anything that wasn’t happy.

Eventually, I pulled together a 1600-word story about a middle aged woman who finds romance on her daily commute. I sent it in certain that my challenge was over. The story was too short, I told myself. It doesn’t have enough romance. It was too blah. It wasn’t my best work. Oh, well. There’s always next year.

A few months later, the results were announced. Much to my surprise, the judges liked my story, and I advanced to the next round. That next round is when I wrote the short story that eventually became my novella Greeks Bearing Gifts.

And that first story? You can read the competition version here, After the contest, I polished it, and it became the first short story I ever sold. You can find it Smoking Pen Press’s anthology A Wink and a Smile (also available as an ebook and an audio book).

Since 2017, I’ve only participated in the NYC Short Story Challenge twice. I didn’t do very well either time, but I signed up again this year. The contest starts at the end of the week, and just like eight years ago, I want to write anything but happy.