Taking a risk

Photo by Liam Simpson on Unsplash

Have you ever written a character that your reader has fallen in love with? 

For me, it was a stuffed lion called Sam. He'd been abandoned at a bus stop and found by a lovely woman called Auntie Deller, who took him home and gave him hot buttered crumpets. 

I shared about him in an ACW group that I was in at the time, and the person running the group adored Sam, and has often asked whatever happened to him. For a long time, nothing. He came to life as part of a character building exercise, and I left it there and went on to writing about elderly ladies with a taste for murder and other delightful tales, but Sam refused to stay away, and now he's going to be shared with the BBC. 

Don't get too excited. I've submitted the letters I wrote as an idea for an animation series.  A lady who takes in abandoned toy animals who come to life. It may not come to anything at all, but as they say, if you don't try, you'll never know. I also sent in a pitch for a fairy-tale bake off, which I'd written for another writer's group that I'm part of. 

So why am I sharing this you may wonder? The main reason was that someone cares about what I wrote, which touches my heart, and Gods. He gave me this gift for writing and created my imagination, though sometimes he may be thinking what! at some of the pieces I write. 

I'm also taking a leap of faith. The submission closes on the 8th Feb and the shortlisting begins on the 9th. I'll find out by the 14th June if I was successful or not. At the very least, I'm hoping someone will see potential in my writing style.  

Maybe I'll finally pick this story back up again, and finally find out what happens to Sam the lion and other animals that Auntie Deller finds. Arthur the buffalo, Olivia the whale, and Kevin the kola all want their stories telling too. I just need to write them and hopefully they'll find their way into people's hearts too. 

I'd love to hear about characters who you've fallen in love with or when you've taken a risk. Let me know in the comments or on Facebook. 

Martin is a writer, baker, photographer and storyteller. He's been published in the ACW Christmas anthology and Lent devotional, and in four flash fiction anthologies He's currently honing his craft at flash fiction and you can find him on Twitter here.