Back in December 2020, Charli Mills, Queen of the Keewenaw region in Michigan and Head Wrangler at the Carrot Ranch, offered her Rough Writers a chance to compete in her TUFF (The Ultimate Flash Fiction) challenge.
The contest challenged writers to prepare an original 99-word draft based on a western theme. Then writers had to reduce their draft to 59 words, followed by two different 59-word points of view. Next, writers had to craft three different 9-word taglines for their story. Finally, writers had to revise their original 99-words based on what they had learned along the way.
Inexplicably, my piece didn’t win (some nonsense about other pieces being better), so it sat and sulked in a corner until I dusted it off recently and sent a 50 word version to 50 Give or Take and they’ve just published it. Check it out at https://preview.mailerlite.com/n1v9s5l0u4/1931196985675619239/b7m8/
Six Crooked Highways 
Cool! Yes, microflash, with some TUFF scrubbing, can result in some really good, interesting work! Congratulations, Doug!
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Many thanks, Liz.
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Sometimes a little extra polish gets the job done. Always worth it when the result gets published.
Yeehaw!?!
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Thanks, Obb. Always appreciated.
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That was quite a series of challenges! I’m glad your 50-word version found the light of day elsewhere. I’m curious, how do you find all these venues to submit your writing to?
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Hi, Janis. There are literally thousands of online and print publishers out there and it takes time to find them (and more importantly the ones that are half way likely to accept your style of work). I subscribe to a number o aggregation newsletters, including Authors Publish, my favorite because it only publishes opportunities with no submission fees. Other useful ones are New Pages and Lit Mag News but there are many more. Submission platforms like Submittable, Duotrope and Chill Subs also list dozens of opportunities. It all takes time to learn the ropes but well worth it in the end, as soon as you get past the avalanche of rejections, 🙂
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Well done Doug. That photo is priceless
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That’s me with Mini-Me, my garden gnome assistant. 🙂
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