We had the privilege of talking with Jaime Gill on winning second place overall in this year's Writer's Games.

WW: What encouraged you to participate in Writer's Games this year?

JG: A two word answer—Charlie Rogers. He’s a wildly talented writing friend of mine who has long participated in Writer's Workout events, and won the Leapfest and Scarefest challenges. He’s a fan of Writer's Workout because it pushes writers to the limits and helps them tap into resources they didn’t know they had in them. It’s a famously demanding and strict contest, but also fun with lively story prompts ranging from love stories to disaster fiction. It’s also just a huge writing challenge, and I have a very competitive streak so I wanted to see if I could rise to it.

WW: What were you worried or nervous about coming into this year's Games?

JG: I was a bit anxious because I knew it was going to be exhausting to write six substantial polished stories with only 72 hours for each one, and all without being able to get any outside input or feedback. In the end, I wrote close to 30,000 words over the course of six events. That’s more than “Animal Farm”, though I will concede Orwell’s words might be better than mine. I knew it was going to be the most demanding writing challenge I had undertaken, and I really didn’t know if I had the stamina for it but wanted to find out.

WW: What kept you motivated to participate in each Event? 

JG: I kept going mostly because I started to really like the stories I was writing. For the first two events, including the practice event, I was coming up with some concepts that excited me and managing to turn them into decent stories. I wanted to see where else the Games would take me and then, when my story came first in the “Go Team” challenge, I felt very encouraged to keep pushing myself and delivering. That’s that competitive streak again.

WW: How did life's challenges affect your writing?

JG: To be honest, it’s more the other way round—how did the writing challenges affect my life? I’ve already drastically scaled down my social life so that I can write while holding onto my day job working in international development in Asia, and for the duration of the challenge I simply eliminated whatever was left. And I have no regrets, I came out with six stories I love and can work further with.

WW: Which Event did you have the most fun with?

JG: The most sheer fun I had was with the disaster story, the one which placed fifth. A few months ago a friend sent me a picture of the moon in cloud, and I called it a celestial jellyfish, and thought “maybe I’ll write a story about celestial jellyfish one day”. And this gave me my chance. I wanted to see where I could take a story based on the absurd idea of the solar system being invaded by jellyfish bigger than planets. What was surprising was that what started out as an

absurdist romp actually turned—at least partly—into a story about childhood mental health and the potential harm of overmedication, and also a little bit of a plea for more international cooperation and less war. I wrote the entirety of that 6,500 word story in a single day, and often had to stop typing and just stare at my laptop with a bit of amused amazement and wonder what the hell I was actually writing. And it ended up, somehow, working.

WW: Which Event was more challenging for you than the rest?

JG: The most technically challenging was the final bingo round, where we had to work with five wildly disparate prompts. And they led me to write a sweeping story following two dysfunctional pairs—one a gay couple on the verge of breaking up, another a father and daughter with a terrible relationship—as they travelled across the vast plains of Siberia and the Gobi Desert under the shadow of an enormous meteor approaching earth. I’d never have written this story without the Games, but it instantly felt like a story I was meant to write. I’m likely to rework that into an even longer story or perhaps even a novel one day. You can check in on my website www.jaimegill.com or follow me at www.twitter.com/jaimegill to see if I see that through.

WW: Where do you find inspiration?

JG: Inspiration is everywhere. It’s in strange little newspaper stories I read, the peculiar things me and my friends talk about, the many different lives I see being lived around me in my adopted home country of Cambodia. I find it when reading about history, when taking long runs, or when travelling. Sometimes I find it in other art forms, like songs or movies which trigger a strong emotional reaction in me, one I want to somehow try and capture in words. I have about 200 story ideas in my notebook, so luckily I don’t think I am going to run out of ideas too soon.

WW: What's the best writing advice someone has ever given you and who said it? How did it change your perspective on writing?

JG: So many people have taught me so many things—often by example—that it’s hard to pick out any one. I did get to meet my favourite living author, David Mitchell, and asked him for his advice and he told me to be “pavonine”, knowing full well I would have to look that word up. I did and it means “to have the quality of a peacock”, so I want to try and make my writing a bit more flamboyant, colourful and fearless. Stephen King’s book “On Writing” is a treasure trove of practical, pragmatic insights (not all of which he himself follows) but one I remember in particular is that first drafts are meant to be messy, unsightly things. That’s certainly true of my first drafts, they are flabby and rough and unfocused. It’s editing where I shine, sculpting whatever mess I’ve made in the first draft into something with shape and beauty.

WW: What advice would you give to writers thinking about participating in next year's Games?

JG: Firstly - do it. Nearly all of the writers I know who competed and finished the Games said it pushed them to a new level as a writer. Working at such speed and in such a solitary way forced me to draw on internal resources I didn’t know I had. At the end of almost every Event, I was able to look back with surprise and delight at a long story full of improvisations and creative flights of fancy that somehow just about worked. I’d also say to anyone considering it, don’t worry in advance about making it to the finishing line. I gave myself permission to skip an Event if I just couldn’t handle the workload, but in the end I was excited to keep going. I’d also encourage participants to be as bold and creative in your storytelling as you dare, because not only will you feel energised as a writer, but the judges seem to enjoy it too.

Responses are published as received.

About Jaime Gill:

Jaime Gill is a British-born writer living in Cambodia, whose stories have been published by Litro, The Phare, Fiction Attic, Good Life Review and others. He is winner of the Honeybee Literature Prize for 2024 and Berlin Literary Review’s Best Flash 2024. He has been nominated for Best of the Net, and been a finalist for awards including the Bath Short Story Contest, The Masters Review Story Award, Bridport Prize, and more. www.jaimegill.com