It is such a cliché: If at first you don’t succeed… We’ve all been given the same advice – don’t give up, keep trying, persevere, and so on. Easy to say when you’re the one giving the advice, not so easy when you’re on the receiving end of repeated rejections.

Twice I entered the Ilkley Literature Festival Short Story Competition and was excited to be short-listed only to have my hopes dashed with not so much as a Highly Commended. How could the judge be so blind to my obvious talents? So, come 2017 and I am in two minds – do I either give it one last go or abandon my efforts completely? Well, you can guess the answer, I don’t just give it a go, I decide to go in all guns blazing and enter three stories, taking the view that the more tickets you buy the better your chances of winning the lottery. And I did, sort of anyway. Two of the three were short-listed, and one of those two pieces (though not the one that I liked the most!) ended up with third prize.

So I was thrilled right? Perhaps. A bit. But then the nagging doubts crept in again. Third-place? After all that effort is that the best I can do? And if it is, then what’s the point of continuing? Another rejection came in for a project I’d worked very hard on. Perhaps I’ve reached the summit of my ability, I’m not going to go any further and I’d be better off spending my time watching daytime TV. I don’t know, I’m still in the same two minds. I can hear my father’s voice telling me not to be so stupid and to keep trying, but taking the hint from multiple rejections is very tempting.